KOLKATA: A section of students gheraoed Viswa Bharati University’s vice-chancellor and 40 senior teachers and other officials Tuesday afternoon to protest a hike in charges for admission forms. University officials said charges for admission forms had been increased two-fold, and in certain cases, there was a ten-fold hike.
The students laid siege to the institution founded by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore after a meeting called by vice-chancellor Bidyut Chakrabarty around 3 pm failed to break the deadlock between the management and the agitating students.
The protest by the undergraduate and postgraduate students started in the Lipika auditorium on campus around 5 pm on Tuesday after the meeting.
According to university sources, charges have been revised after eight years. “The Ministry of Human Resource Development asked us to become self-dependent. The increase is part of that exercise,” said a university official.
The vice-chancellor explained the reasons for the hike in admission form charges but it did not work and students stuck to their demand to roll back the hike. The situation worsened on Wednesday morning when agitating students spotted a teacher leaving the auditorium through one of the rear doors. They chased and intercepted him.
The students alleged they were manhandled by the security guards of the university.
“We are staging an agitation in support of our demand. The security guards manhandled us when they were trying to drive us out of the auditorium campus,” alleged one of the students.