Continuing their protest against police presence on the campus, students from the University of Hyderabad (UoH), have decided to approach President Pranab Mukherjee, along with the authorities at the Universities Grants Commission (UGC) and the ministry of human resource development.
The decision was taken at the university general body meeting held on campus on Tuesday which was attended by around 800 students.
"Just like the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, we would be writing to the MHRD stating that the students have unanimously decided to have a police-free campus," Vincent Benny, president of the students union told the Times of India
The protests, which have been going on for more than a week, began following anger among the teachers over one of them belonging to the North-Eastern states being subjected to a search by the university security and police based on a verbal complaint that there were 'illegal occupants' in her house.
The students meanwhile wanted the Vice Chancellor to withdraw the new hostel code of conduct and added that the varsity should deal with issues based on its own mechanism.
Things reached a boiling point after the Cyderabad police distributed flyers in the college saying, “You can get expelled, suspended or punished for a social media hate post.”
The UGC circular, issued in April this year, has gathered criticism from university students across the country. UoH students also claim to have been facing the brunt, the TOI report adds.
Meanwhile, the Vice-Chancellor has claimed that, “the administration cannot take a stand against the police or against any direction from the MHRD, since it is the MHRD who funds the University.”