Physical assault on girl students of BHU is a blot on our system

The political interference and pure politics of alleged favoritism in appointing head of the universities in several states despite their having the status of autonomy has resulted in much of the political interference in the campuses.

As a result the head of the institutions or the Vice chancellors allegedly in order to serve the interests of their political masters or ideology sometimes become partisan and obstinate and while executing their duties commit blunders as the one happened in Banaras Hindu University where students, particularly the girls who were protesting against molestation and other genuine demands inside the university campus and in front of the Vice chancellor’s house democratically to seek justice were badly lathhi charged and thrashed by the police on the recommendation of the VC who allowed the police inside the campus.

Several girls and boy students were physically roughed up, badly thrashed and subsequently injured for no major fault of theirs except demanding expeditious justice and punishment to the culprits. The police it is understood acted on the clear cut directions of the Vice Chancellor who allegedly happens to have the blessings of political masters of the state.

This anti student action of BHU administration and the Vice Chancellor has been deplored all over the country particularly by the teaching, student and intellectual fraternity of the country. The role of the state police in this whole episode have been of hooligans inviting disgrace and condemnation nationally.

This is not the first time that the prejudiced anti student role of Vice Chancellors and the police had been under suspicion for favoring their political masters and subjecting students fighting for democratic rights to physical assault and thrashing, even arbitrarily putting them behind bars thus ruining their academic future instead of treating them as their wards infusing in them a sense of discipline and academic responsibilities on amicable basis.

In the case of Hyderabad, Jawahar lal Nehru and Jadhav Universities too students were subjected to physical thrashings and framing up of false cases against them. The murder of Dalit student leader of Hyderabad Central University and mysterious disappearance of a student of JNU DELHI are the incidents of stark reminders as to how the democratically protesting students for their constitutional rights meet their fateful tragic end.

What makes the situation even more worse is the fact that on the arbitrary orders of the obstinate VC of BHU the male police was sent inside the campus and hostels to drag them out, physically assault and frame them in baseless, biased and fabricated police cases. This is outrightly absurd and amounts to open contravention of rules. It’s high time that political parties must give up interfering in and influencing the Universities autonomous status. WHAT DO YOU SAY FRIENDS?

SUNIL NEGI