Following intervention by police, Ravenshaw University Vice-Chancellor Prof Ishan Kumar Patro and other staffs were freed early on Tuesday morning after they were kept confined to a room by some students for nearly 13 hours. Demanding recall of the Students’ Union election cancellation notice, the students, including girls, had gheraoed the VC and other staffs in a seminar room since late on Monday evening.
The university authorities on Monday had issued a notice declaring that this year’s elections for forming a Students’ Council had been cancelled due to widespread unrest in the campus. Like last year, the authorities had decided to hold indirect elections to form the Students’ Council, to which a section of students objected and demanded to rollback the decision. They also demanded to have direct elections as was the practice earlier
. “While we were discussing over the election issue, some students gheraoed us and did not allow anyone to come out of the room despite our repeated requests. They kept us confined to the room for about 13 hours and did not even allow the ladies to use the washroom,” the VC said, adding that this unruly behaviour of the students amount to commission of offence and he vowed to take stringent action against the offenders as per law.
The VC also indicated that those inhabitants of women’s hostel who stayed outside their hostel beyond 12 O’clock on Monday night would be issued show-cause notices and their parents would also be intimated about it.
“In the absence of satisfactory replies to the notices, the hostel seats of the offenders will be cancelled,” Prof Patro said, expressing deep anguish over the conduct of the students. “Although these students were creating situations necessitating to declare sine die in the university, I am not going to upset the academic interests of 8,000 students for the unwarranted behaviour of a handful of students,” the VC said and emphasised that a large section of students are not interested for Students’ Council elections.