DTU protest: Talks with students fail,exams boycotted

“The Delhi government passed the DTU Bill. Therefore,only the government can initiate the process of revoking it,” one of the students who attended the meeting said. Students claimed top-ranking officials in the government had called them up with the possibility of reaching a negotiation.

DTU authorities had proposed a joint statement declaring the withdrawal of the students’ agitation. They also promised to reconsider the expulsion of students “favourably”.

The change in the university’s stand — which expelled two students and suspended two faculty members for taking part in the agitation without inquiry — came after the students put up a united front on Monday to boycott examinations.

Few turn up for exams
Only four students turned up for the morning session of the mid-term semester examination. As the day drew to a close,official statistics released by the university indicated that only about 120 of a total of 3,000 students appeared for the exam.

Students put their careers on the line by not appearing for the exam.

“I have been offered a lucrative job. Even a postponement of the academic calendar by a month could mean losing the offer,” a final-year student who boycotted his exams said. “I had to do it for the sake of my college,” he added.

A handful of students who appeared for their exams did so for different reasons. “I tried gathering all my classmates to boycott the exams,but the head of our department stepped in with threats. Finally,all of us had to sit for the exams,” a student said.

Refusing to go with the re-christening of the erstwhile Delhi College of Engineering (DCE),students do not call their institution a ‘university’ anymore. ‘Delhi College’ is the operational term.

‘Students being led astray by a few’
The university’s official explanation for the low attendance was: “…The leaders (of the agitation) took other students to some undisclosed location at a distance from the Metro stations,which prevented many willing students from taking the exam.”

A large contingent of policemen posted outside the college gates did not help matters. “We have been careful about keeping the protest peaceful. We do not want to give the administration any chance of criticising us. They have,however,posted armed policemen outside an academic institution,” a student said.

In a statement on March 13,

the president of the Alumni Association Karnail Singh said: “The college should not become a place to settle personal disputes through students. The students should take care not to be misled by such elements.”

Singh is the Joint Commissioner of Police of the Northern Range. “My being the officer in charge of the area has nothing to do with my position in the alumni association. I believe if even a single student wants to take the exam,he or she should be allowed,” he said. “I received calls from parents who said their wards had been threatened into taking part in the agitation. I had to prevent students from taking the law into their hands,and deployed the force,” he added.