Cops beat up BHU girl students, varsity shut

Lucknow, September 24

To prevent further escalation of tension on the Benaras Hindu University (BHU) campus following the violence last night, the Varanasi district administration has closed down all undergraduate colleges in the district till further orders. The BHU administration has advanced Dasehra holidays by three days and suspended classes up to October 2.

Vice-Chancellor GC Tripathi has ordered the students to vacate the hostels forthwith. There has been an undeclared curfew at the campus since the police operation last night during which protesting students, mostly women, were mercilessly beaten up. Despite the police presence, a large number of students organised a peace march this evening to protest against the “police brutality”.

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The police had last midnight entered the campus and thrashed girl students on a dharna at the university gate and outside the Vice- Chancellor’s residence, demanding security and action against those who had molested a girl student inside the campus on the evening of September 21. The students were chased and repeatedly hit outside the women’s hostel. Some were kicked.   

A large police contingent gathered outside the campus gate in the presence of the district magistrate and the SSP and an all-male police force, carrying batons, chased women students who ran inside their hostels. 

Initially, the administration denied the violence but after videos of the police brutality went viral, the officials became incommunicado. 

The students are demanding round-the-clock security, making security personnel accountable for untoward incidents targeting girls, adequate lighting on roads to girls’ hostels, a CCTV network, proper checking at gates, recruitment of women security guards and a gender sensitisation panel. 

With the students refusing to relent, the district administration had to change the route of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s entourage. The attack on the students came hours after the PM had left his parliamentary constituency. — TNS