A high voltage drama which was enacted for the entire day on the mobile towers of the city on Tuesday ended with an assurance of Chief Minister Harish Rawat. The issue of evening classes in the DAV College reached a flashpoint on Tuesday when six students scaled telecommunication towers of the city.
The episode which kept the police and the administration of the Capital city on tenterhooks for the entire day began at 11 am when a National Student Union of India (NSUI) activist Mohan Bhandari climbed a mobile tower near the DAV College. The news spread like a wildfire and the students closed the college and in the melee the biometric attendance machine of the college was destroyed. At around 1 pm two more students on pretext of providing drinking water to Bhandari ascended the same tower. These students Akash Gaur and Suraj Kohli belonging to Aryan group later refused to come down and joined the protest against the delay in the admissions in the evening classes. Not to be left behind the ABVP students staged a dharna at the main entrance of the college and demanded that the process of admissions in the evening classes should immediately start. As if to prove a point in matching the other students’ organizations three ABVP activists Siddharth Rana, Devendra Bisht and Narendra Sharma climbed atop a mobile tower located in the Survey Chowk in the evening.
The tempers of the students were flared up in the morning when the Principal of the DAV College Devendra Bhasin told them that the college management has declared that the entire process of the admissions in the evening classes is illegal. The Principal was seen persuading the students to stop their protest but was shouted down by the students. Bhasin told The Pioneer that he has apprised off the situation to the Chief Minister Harish Rawat. He said that the teachers of the college were reluctant to teach in the evening classes and now the college management has also expressed its unwillingness for these classes.
The NSUI leader Swati Negi said that the college management is deliberately shuttling the evening classes for their petty interests. The NSUI leaders demanded that the Principal of the college should resign. The leader of the Aryan group Bhagwati Prasad said that the seats in the evening classes should be increased to 3815 and appointment of teachers should be made in the college.
The President of Student union of DAV College and ABVP leader Paras Goyal said that the college management should not play with the future of students and start the evening classes without delay. To diffuse the situation CM Rawat sent his OSD Aanand Bahuguna who took leaders of different student unions to the residence of CM where the Rawat reportedly assured them that he would take up the issue with the college management tomorrow. On the assurance of CM all six protestors descended from the towers at around 8 pm.