Visva Bharati University students call off agitation

Kolkata: Vice-Chancellor of Visva Bharati University along with other professors, who were gheraoed by the students inside the university since Tuesday, were released after the agitating students called off their sit-in demonstration on Wednesday evening.

Students decided to withdraw their agitation after the university officials assured that their demands would be looked into after May 25.

The students were protesting against the university's decision to increase the fee structure.

Around 80 students held a sit-in protest and prevented faculty members and officials from leaving the university campus.

A meeting was held on Tuesday evening to discuss the matter, but as the authorities failed to find a solution. The agitating students said that the university authorities have doubled the fee amount this year.

They said Rabindra Nath Tagore never wanted to burden students with heavy fees and hence the university officials were not showing respect to the bard.

They alleged that university cannot increase the fee arbitrarily in this manner. It was learnt that some university professors fell ill after they remained gheroaed for a long time.

It was alleged that some teachers were heckled by the students when they tried to move out of the university.

Earlier, students had submitted a memorandum to the university authorities in this regard but no steps were taken. They later decided to launch a sit-in demonstration.

A meeting was held on the university campus, where the officials decided to consider the demands of the students. They told the students that they were looking into possibilities to rollback the fee hike. Another meeting would take place after May 25.

However, students have threatened to launch a bigger protest if their demands were not met.

A senior official of the Visva Bharati University said student agitation was a common thing at the varsity. Many discussions were held and some meetings will be shortly conducted. The matter will be settled and the students and authorities will soon work out a solution.

"Students fail to understand certain things at times because they are young. But we will definitely try to make them understand by discussing the problem with them," the official said.