Students from universities across the country camping outside the UGC office for the last 45 days against scrapping of non-NET fellowships marched to Parliament to raise their issue leading to massive traffic jams. The protest was stopped midway and around 150 students were detained and police had to resort to water cannon and tear gas shells to disperse the crowd.
The students including those from JNU, DU, Jamia, Ambedkar University, Allahabad University, Jadavpur University, Aligarh Muslim University, Haryana University, Punjab University and others participated in the "national mobilisation call" demanding that their suggestions be considered, on Wednesday. The students also registered their protest against proposed negotiations on higher education at the forthcoming World Trade Organisation conference in Nairobi.
"We have been sitting on protest since 45 days but government has neither tried to have a conversation with us nor they have paid any heed to our demands. We are dispersed from here every now and then by police and now when we tried to march to the Parliament we were beaten up by police," said Sunny Kumar, one of the protester.