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Delhi Police Thursday detained 160 students from the ABVP units of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) and Delhi University (DU), for protesting against the hostel fee hike in JNU. “A total of 160 people — 148 men and 12 women — were detained at the Parliament Street police station. Protesting students jumped over barricades and had to be detained,” said DCP (New Delhi) Eish Singhal.
ABVP JNU unit secretary Manish Jangid alleged that “10-15 students had to be hospitalised after they sustained injuries through lathicharge”. However, the DCP termed the allegations of lathicharge “false”.
Thursday’s march against hostel fee hike was held from Mandi House to Parliament Street. Around 200 students participated in the march, where slogans of ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ were raised alongside ‘Roll back fee hike’.
At Parliament Street, protesters climbed on to the barricades and raised slogans, but did not break them.
ABVP national convenor for All India Central Universities, Lalit Pandey, said the organisation had called the protest against the MHRD-appointed high power committee as well. “We don’t consider this a committee, we consider it a compromise. It has been created only with the purpose of causing delay…,” he said.
“The Inter Hall Administration manual needs to be rolled back…The way JNUSU has bent in front of this committee is shameful. We’ll not engage with the committee,” said Pandey.
While the ABVP has distanced itself from the JNUSU protest, the binary was not as stark among the protesters. “I was a part of the JNUSU protest. My family income is less than Rs 50,000 a year; paying Rs 8,000 for hostel is out of question,” said Saurav Kumar Singh, a PhD student.
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