HYDERABAD: Two days after an incident in University of Hyderabad (UoH) where there was a heated argument between students and a team of wardens over hostel regulations, the varsity has set up a committee to inquire into the matter.A release issued by the university administration on Sunday said that 10 students have been asked to depose before the committee in concern to the Friday incident, in which they prevented wardens from discharging their duties. According to the students, a team of six wardens from UoH carried a surprise check at MHJ hostel around 11 pm on Friday.
One of the ten students—Kuldeep Singh Negi, former students’ union president from UoH, said, “The wardens, including two deputy chief wardens, found a girl student in one of the boys’ rooms at MHJ hostel. Already, Tagore International Hostel on campus has both girls’ and boys’ wing. On these grounds, a hostel handbook which bars a girl hosteler from entering boys’ hostel and vice versa was rejected by us students three years back.”
The students say that the Friday incident in which the wardens joined by security staff started banging the doors of the concerned hostel room led to 200 varsity students agitating outside MHJ hostel.
The university release further reads: “The surprise check by wardens to weed out unauthorised people led to heckling of the officials including physical threats.” Rejecting the allegation, Sagnik said the act of 20 persons including the wardens banging a hostel door for a simple thing was condemnable and if the students of central university are being denied of basic amenities like clean water and toilet they have right to silently protest, said another student, who didn’t want to be identified. The release reads that police had to intervene before the wardens moved out of the hostel.
Reacting to this, a student said police interference in such matters, which can be tackled at university level, hint that the varsity authority is more interested in witch hunting instead of being answerable to students.