JNUSU office bearers taken by police to meet HRD secy
New Delhi: Around 100 JNU students, including students union president Aishe Ghosh, were detained and some were injured when police allegedly baton-charged protestors as they marched towards Parliament on the first day of Winter Session on Monday, demanding a total rollback of the hostel fee hike.
The protesting students sat at the road outside Safdurjung Tomb demanding the release of those detained and a meeting with officials of the HRD Ministry. The top brass of Delhi police tried to initiate a dialogue with them and urged them to not take law into their hands.
Traffic was affected in some parts of Lutyens’ Delhi as the students marched towards Parliament. Among other intersections, vehicles were moving at a snail’s pace on Nelson Mandela Marg, Aurobindo Marg and Baba Gang Nath Marg.
The entry and exit points of three Delhi Metro stations near Parliament were shut down temporarily and trains did not halt at Udyog Bhawan and Patel Chowk. The services resumed four hours later. Students took to Twitter to share pictures of the march and of injuries they received allegedly in a lathicharge by police, as the hashtag “emergencyinJNU” trended on the microblogging site. Top police officials were on their toes as they controlled the crowd that was chanting slogans against the force.
The students, who were holding a protest on the university’s premises for the past three weeks, hit the streets carrying placards, seeking to get the attention of Parliament about their demand. The protesters asserted that they would not relent until the government withdrew the hike.
Hundreds of police personnel stopped the students at the Baba Ganganath Marg, around 600 metres from the main gate of the university in south Delhi, and some of them were forcefully stopped from moving ahead.
“We are being given a lollipop in terms of partial rollback. I’m the first one in my family to study in a university. There are many others like me. Education is not the birthright of a privileged few,” Priyanka, a student of JNU, said.
Office-bearers of JNU Students Union (JNUSU) were escorted by police on Monday to meet the HRD secretary as thousands of protestors camping outside the Safdarjung tomb were allegedly forced by the force personnel to go back to the campus.
Students and teachers alleged they were lathicharged and were being forced by the police to leave the spot.
Police officials said the crowd was blocking the routes for ambulances of AIIMS and Safdarjung hospital, but assured that all allegations of a “lathicharge” will be looked into. (PTI)
