All varsities yet to reopen; students protest in DU, JNU

New Delhi: Even as college and university students in the Capital eagerly look forward to going back to their campuses now that the Delhi Disaster Management Authority has prescribed offline classes for higher education institutes, not many of them reopened for physical classes on Monday, with student organisations in Delhi University launching a protest and students at JNU also protesting for hostel allocation and routine campus and library access.

While the Jawaharlal Nehru University had issued a notification that it would restart physical classes from Monday, the JNU Students' Union wrote to the Dean of Students on Monday to immediately restart offline lectures and all other activities as mentioned by the Registrar in their February 5 circular.

Meanwhile, at Delhi University, students gathered around the V-C's office demanding immediate reopening of the campus with offline classes as the Students Federation of India claimed that over 53 departments across the university observed a complete boycott of online classes.

"We decided that we must take action to send a message that students, in general, support the demand of re-opening the campus. Hence, we boycotted online classes today," said Arushi Sharma, a student of Miranda House of DU.

The students hung an ''Out of Service'' placard on the gate of the VC office and the SFI announced a "Sadak pe Kaksha" protest from February 9.

The SFI was joined in their demands by the All India Students' Association (AISA) and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) with JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh supporting their agitation for a full reopening of the campus.

While some universities such as the Ambedkar University did resume physical classes from Monday, DU has said that they will take some more time to prepare for a full reopening.

Other prominent universities like Jamia Millia Islamia and Jamia Hamdard are also yet to reopen, with JMI likely waiting for a go-ahead from the UGC in the matter.

Asked about the reopening of the DU colleges, vice-chancellor Yogesh Singh had said they would give a few days' time to the students to return to the campus.

"If the DDMA allows 100 per cent seating capacity, we will definitely reopen the campus. But we will give a few days' time to our students, say 10 days, for returning to the campus since most of the students are from other states. We will formulate our own strategy," he had said.

Even as the DU protest continued, the Delhi Police said that the V-C office had called them about the protest, following which they said they immediately removed the students from outside the office and released them. The police said the varsity asked for police assistance in writing and while many protesters vacated themselves, others were removed by them. They added that no one had been detained.