Lawlessness returns to campuses

Officials and employees of universities are apprehensive. So are bona fide students. They believe the elections will again lead to lawlessness on campuses of the kind that prompted the Mayawati government to ban them.

While there is no count of minor incidents of violence,some major ones are as follows:

LUCKNOW UNIVERSITY

Last Saturday,a group of youths led by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad’s Alok Shukla bullied Lucknow University (LU) proctor Prof Pawan Agarwal and admission coordinator Prof Rajeev Pandey at university’s new campus in Jankipuram area. They were demanding Shukla’s admission into MA (Arabic) even when he did not fulfill the eligibility criteria. Shukla,who is reportedly planning to contest the student union elections,is an accused in a case lodged at Hasanganj police station by the university administration for damaging the car of Vice-Chancellor Manoj Kumar Mishra in March. Agarwal said Shukla and his associates left only after police intervened.

On July 2,a group of youths,including university students as well as outsiders,created ruckus and hurt three security guards at LU’s new campus during the counseling of under-graduate courses. They first asked the university officials to admit some students after payment of only partial fee. When the administration refused,they started shouting slogans against the university administration,and tried to enter the counseling rooms. Later,they clashed with the police.

The university administration lodged an FIR at Jankipuram police station against eight youths.

A group of youths,led by members of Samajwadi Party’s students’ wing,Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha,and BJP-backed ABVP had damaged LU V-C Manoj Kumar Mishra’s vehicle in March. They were protesting over a large number of students failing the third semester of Masters in Social Work (MSW) course. They claimed there had been “faulty evaluation”.

DDU UNIVERSITY,GORAKHPUR

Last Saturday,a group of more than 100 youths gheraoed the office of Prof P C Trivedi,vice-chancellor of Deen Dayal Upadhyay at Gorakhpur,demanding that he revoke the suspension of ‘student leader’ Girijesh Gupta ‘Tyagi’. An M Com first year student,Tyagi was earlier suspended for disturbing the admission process,and threatening and hurling abuses at admission committee member Prof B S Verma. Proctor O P Pandey said among those who joined the protest were a large number of outsiders.

ALLAHABAD UNIVERSITY

In April,over 200 youths held AU V-C AK Singh hostage at his office for over 30 hours in protest against the university’s decision to vacate hostels in order to remove illegal occupants. Police had to lathicharge and lob tear gas shells to disperse the students. The students retaliated by stone pelting,arson and violent clashes,which left dozens of students and policemen injured,besides property being damaged at the campus.

Police lodged nine FIRs at Colonelganj police station against 11 named persons,including three Samajwadi Party supporters named Abhishek Yadav,Raghvendra Yadav and Akhilesh Gupta,National Students’ Union of India’s Dinesh Yadav,and a contractor,Sanjeev Rai,and 300-400 unidentified persons.

Abhishek,a known supporter of Samajwadi Party,has been on the forefront of many agitations,including the one in which he showed black flags to Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi on November 14 last year,when he was about to address an election rally in Jhunsi. Raghvendra is district president of Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha.

Police had arrested Akhilesh,Dinesh,Dhirendra and one Vikas Tiwari on July 29 but they were given bail the same day at the police station. Abhishek is yet to be arrested.

‘Neta’ alumni also make a comeback

For “student leaders’’,hooliganism and rowdyism are ways of showing strength. Now,they are building pressure that the government relaxes the J M Lyngdoh committee guidelines for student union polls and raise the age limit of 28 years for candidates.

While the Lyngdoh committee guidelines fixes the maximum limit of election expenditure by a candidate at Rs 5,000 and allows no use of printed material for canvassing,there are already posters all around the city by aspiring student leaders.

Last month,one “student leader” forcibly put his poster on a location bought by an advertising agency. When the advertising agency owner removed that material and put his own hoarding,students destroyed the material and threatened the advertising agency owner.

Among those who are planing to contest elections from Lucknow University Students’ Union (LUSU) are Rudresh Pratap Singh,Ajit Kumar Yadav ‘Sonu’. Both belong to Samajwadi Chhatra Sabha.

Singh passed his Masters in Physical Education course this year from LU and has again applied for MSc (Zoology) — apparently to be able to contest the LUSU for the post of president. Singh is also one of the accused in a clash between the youths and police and university officials.

Sonu,who is keen to contest for the post of LUSU general secretary,is also one of the accused in the same clash. Sonu completed his graduation from LU in 2008. This year,he has enrolled himself for Masters in Linguistics.