Varanasi, (Samajweekly) Student unrest continued in the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) and now it is two groups who are sparring over the proposed construction of a boundary wall, separating the BHU campus from the IIT campus.
The decision was taken after last week’s incident where a girl was allegedly molested on the campus by three unidentified men.
Two groups of students clashed on Sunday to protest against the decision to construct the boundary wall and over the delay in arrest of three men who allegedly molested a girl student at the institute on November 2.
While one group of agitating students was associated with the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the other owed allegiance to the Left-wing Bhagat Singh Chhatra Morcha (BSM) and All India Students’ Association (AISA).
After the clash, police used mild force to disperse them, a police official said.
The ABVP activists alleged that BSM and AISA members shouted anti-Hindutva slogans and attacked ABVP women members who opposed the slogans.
On the other hand, BSM and AISA members called the allegations baseless.
Instead, they claimed that the ABVP members attacked them as they tried to burn an effigy of the state government in protest against the delay in arrest of the accused in the molestation case.
Station house officer (SHO) Shivakant Mishra said that a scuffle started among workers of the ABVP with AISA-BSM over shouting slogans and burning an effigy during the protest at BHU gate.
“Using mild force, police dispersed them,” Mishra added.
The ABVP’s BHU unit president Abhay Pratap Singh said: “Several students, including ABVP members and members of the BSM and AISA, were on dharna (sit-in) at the BHU gate since Friday to press for arrest of the men involved in the molestation incident.”
The authorities of the BHU and IIT-BHU on Sunday evening , however, unanimously decided that it is not feasible to isolate or the divide the campus with a boundary wall but reiterated their commitment to ensuring the safety of students on the entire campus and initiate all possible measures for the same.
The decision was taken at a joint meeting of BHU and IIT-BHU authorities here.
Students were protesting against the earlier decision to create a boundary wall for the IIT-BHU after the molestation incident of November 2.
The protesting students had said that dividing the campus is not a solution to the problem, rather security measures should be upgraded.
BHU Vice Chancellor Prof Sudhir Kumar Jain and IIT-BHU director Prof Pramod Kumar Jain chaired a meeting attended by other top functionaries of both the institutions.
They discussed security measures and passed several other resolutions.
