DU students' group protests at MHRD, detained

Over 40 students of the Delhi University were on Friday detained for staging a protest in front of the Human Resource Development Ministry near the Parliament.

New Delhi: Over 40 students of the Delhi University were on Friday detained for staging a protest in front of the Human Resource Development Ministry near the Parliament.

The students, mostly from the School of Open Learning, were demanding proper arrangement for their classes as mentioned in their curriculum.

"Our course curriculum reads that we will be given 20 classes in a term. But only 13 classes were held. Our course remains to be completed and exams are approaching. Various other issues regarding the SOL of the Delhi University remain unnoticed and unaddressed," said Dinesh Verma, a SOL student.

"The students were detained from the Shastri Bhavan as we didn't have any prior information regarding their gathering. There were no violence from any side. All of them have been released after some two hours," a senior police official said.

However the students say that the protest was a non-violent one and therefore detention was not required unless someone from the concerned department heard their appeal.

The protest was led by students activist group 'Krantikari Yuva Sangathan' (KYS).

"We were staging a silent protest. But all of us were detained. There were no female guards initially for the girls and they were manhandled by the male cops only. Our issues remain unheard and unnoticed. It's an issue that thousands of students face on daily basis," alleged another student Shahnawaz, who is also the convener of KYS.

Among those issues faced by the students, include lack of proper facilities of library for SOL students, number of students in a class exceeds upto 250-300 per class, no information on 'Personal Contact Programme' is conveyed to students on time.

Shaheen, a B.Com first year student, alleged that there are many other issues regarding safety of women and other academics related issues that need to be looked at, but the concerned departments have been "sleeping over it" since long time.  

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