The News Minute | September 18, 2014 | 12.17 pm IST
The complaints of sexual harassment of some students at Jadavpur University has spiralled into a state-wide education strike on Thursday, a day after students were beaten by police.
Police beat students in the early hours of the morning on Wednesday after a 10-hour agitation, drawing condemnation from various quarters. Left student unions have called for an education strike. Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has "condemned" the student agitation.
According to The Telegraph, university students had gheraoed the Vice Chancellor of the university Abhijit Chakrabarti on Tuesday, demanding changes in the committee that had been tasked with inquiring into the allegations.
Both the VC and the students were unwilling to back down from their respective positions. The students wanted the VC to apologise for calling the police. Chakrabarti refused but offered to speak to a group of students and discuss a solution, which in turn was rejected by the students.
According to another Telegraph report, the VC had to be escorted by the police form the room he had been gheraoed in. The stand off between students and the police continued late into the night, and the VC was escorted out around 2 am on Wednesday.
The Telegraph quoted a police officer as saying: “Minutes after the VC was rescued, three police personnel — two men and a woman —were pushed and pulled by a group of students. This infuriated the force. The dam of patience broke."