PRAYAGRAJ: It has been about one month since the students of Allahabad University in Uttar Pradesh have been agitating over the 400 pe cent hike in fees, varsity officials said.
There have been a number of meetings between the students and the district and university administrations, but nothing has come out of them.
The leader of the protest, Ajay Yadav "Samrat," said, "The fee hike is not acceptable at all. Students from poor families come here to study and make a better life for themselves, but it is clear that the university administration doesn't care about them. We will keep getting upset until the increase is rolled back." Students who were upset have tried different ways to protest over the past few days.
They tried "bhu-samadhi," or burying themselves alive on purpose, earlier this week to get their point across.
A group of students has been on a relay hunger strike.
Police pulled the protesters out of the ditches that students had dug near the university's Union Hall, which stopped the protesters.
The police and the student leaders got into a fight because of this. Luckily, none of the students were hurt badly during the incident.
One student is said to have killed himself in September to show his protest. However, the administration of the university said that the student, Ashutosh Tiwari, was not a student at Allahabad University and was staying in the Tarachand hostel illegally.
In a statement, the university said that the event would be looked into.
On Tuesday, people from the city government and the university met with student leaders to talk about the ongoing trouble.
The students who were protesting said that the fees should not have gone up and that the student union should be brought back by holding elections.
The university explained its position on both issues, giving reasons and justifications for the fee increase and saying that the student union issue is still in court and that the university can't make a decision about it.
The university administration's main point was that Vice-Chancellor Sangita Srivastava had given her word that no student, no matter how smart or poor, would be turned away from school because of the fee hike.
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