War of words follows campus battle

This stalemate is likely to affect the university’s functioning when it opens on July 16. DUTA has said they will boycott the V-C and will not allow him to attend any social function on campus. The students are screaming “police brutality, initiated by university officials”.

For Academic Council members attending the meeting, the incident started with slogan shouting and the noise of window panes shattering. “The meeting was adjourned for five minutes after member S.P.S. Chauhan objected to receiving the agenda not on time,” says registrar K.K. Panda. “The sloganeering began 15 minutes after the meeting began and during the adjournment, the stone-throwing started.”

What followed, according to V-C Mehta and other members was a free for all, with students and DUTA “man-handling” senior professors and deans.

The other side to the story is very different. For DUTA members, Delhi University Students’ Union (DUSU) activists and Delhi University Researcher’s Association (DURA), the sequence of events starts with the lathi-charge. According to the people on dharna outside the venue of the AC meeting, the lathi-charge was unprovoked.

DUTA president Shri Ram Oberoi says: “The teachers were sitting on dharna on one side and DURA on the other. We had already informed the V-C about our dharna and so had DURA. There was slogan shouting and nothing more than that.”

DUTA was there to move the pay scale issue at the AC meeting. They also wanted the fee hike and 25 per cent cut in teachers’ salaries on the agenda. DUTA was protesting the decision to debar a research scholar from taking competitive examinations.

Oberoi adds that the confusion started when DUSU president Anil Jha went up to the police barricade and asked to be allowed to attend the meeting. He claimed that he had been sent the agenda. “We were going towards the barricade, shouting slogans and wanted to give a memorandum inside,” explains Jitendra Kumar, DURA president. “Prof Ramesh Sharma was standing near the policemen and ordered them to hit us. Students only retaliated after receiving severe blows.”

Officials clarify that Jha was in fact not invited to the meeting. “He is not a member, why should he be there,” says Mehta. “The police were there to ensure peace. We did not tell them to lathi-charge, but when the property was being destroyed they had to do it.”