The Students’ Federation of India’s (the student wing of the Communist Party of India [Marxist]) 'Chalo Assembly’ programme was thwarted by the Telangana police on Wednesday, March 25, by detaining nearly 300 student leaders across the state. As the budget session was underway, the state committee of the SFI had given a call to hold demonstrations at the Assembly in Hyderabad.
The SFI had intended to voice their concerns over the delay in the release of TS-Epass scholarships and demand an increase in the state's education budget to 30%. However, the police had put them under preventive detention, derailing the scheduled protest.
The police action was dubbed “alarming” by the SFI unit of the University of Hyderabad. The students alleged that three of their leaders – Kripa Maria George, G Mohit, and Nihad Sulaiman – were detained by the police without notifying the University authorities.
According to the students, police personnel directly entered the hostels at 7 am and prevented the SFI leaders from leaving their rooms. The SFI said that they realised about the preventive detention only two hours later.
Following this, the SFI organised a flash protest outside the Vice-Chancellor’s office, insinuating that the University was privy to the detention. “The police came directly to the hostel rooms, which are designed like a maze. This is not possible unless the University staff gave them the information,” said a student.
Speaking to TNM, Kripa, the state committee member of SFI, said, “The police came to our hostel room and told us we were under preventive detention. Despite our pleas, they didn’t even leave us to attend the classes.”
The police left the campus only at around 2 pm following the protest, she said. The students questioned how the police detained students without any formal complaint or case against them.
The SFI protested against the administration, arguing that the police were trespassing on the campus by not informing the administration about their visit to the campus.
In a press statement, the SFI said that the latest intervention of the police was not an isolated incident. “Over the past month, police have repeatedly entered the campus, curbing democracy and arresting students without proper charges.”