After Panjab University was rocked by violence with students clashing with the police, Vice President of the country, M Hamid Ansari who is also the Chancellor of PU, on Wednesday sought a report about the incident even as Vice Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover blamed a "handful of people for engineering violence".
As sedition charges were initially included in the FIR, the police, who arrested six more students on Wednesday, said that it was done on the basis of the complaint by varsity authorities but later removed.
At the University, where an uneasy calm prevailed, authorities said that the police may have "misinterpreted" their complaint. "Today we have detained six more students in connection with yesterdays protest," UT Chandigarh SP Eish Singhal said here.
Asked whether police had booked students for sedition, the SP said initially, sedition charge was added in the FIR on the basis of complaint of PU authorities, but later it was dropped.
Police said they had booked the students for various charges including rioting and damage to the public property.
PU Chief Security Officer Ashwani Kaul said that the complaint might have been "misinterpreted" by police. "We never meant that the students raised slogans against the state. When we came to know that sedition charge was being added, we approached police and clarified that students raised slogans against UGC, MHRD and PU," said Kaul.
So far 53 students have been arrested out of 66 who have been named in the FIR, police said.
PU Vice Chancellor Arun Kumar Grover said that PU Chancellor Ansari had sought a report on this incident which he would submit. "A handful of people engineered this protest," alleged the VC adding that he never expected students protest would lead to violence on the PU campus.
He asserted that students pelting stones and indulging in violence was not acceptable. Grover said that this incident would tarnish the image of PU "globally".
The VC also blamed a student leader who had lost elections to the students council for having instigated others to indulge in violence. On steep fee hike issue, Grover said that varsity had raised fee in some courses to bring parity in their tuition fee.
An uneasy calm prevailed at the campus on Wednesday which saw violent clashes yesterday after students clashed with police yesterday protesting against tuition fee hike.
During protest several students and policemen were injured with police resorting to water cannon, tear gas and cane charge after protesters pelted stones at them. Some mediapersons were also injured during the protest.
Meanwhile, the Shiromani Akali Dal, Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and left parties including CPI and CPI(M) condemned police action on students. Gurpreet Singh Waraich, Punjab convener of Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), demanded probe into the violence by an independent agency while alleging that students were provoked under a deep rooted conspiracy.