NEW DELHI: Three All India Students’ Association (AISA) activists ended their 23-day-long hunger strike at Jantar Mantar on Monday following an appeal from a delegation of opposition legislators, civil society members and eminent personalities urging them to continue the movement through Parliament and other public campaigns.
Neha, Manish and Aameen, all PhD scholars, had each lost more than 12% of their body mass during the 23-day fast and continued despite dangerously low blood sugar levels.
The delegation comprised Rajya Sabha MP Manoj Jha, CPI(M) MP Amra Ram, CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Rajaram Singh, social activist Yogendra Yadav, senior advocate Prashant Bhushan, academic Atul Sood and actors Prakash Raj and Shabana Azmi. Appealing to the students to end the fast, Yogendra Yadav said, “This is not the breaking of the hunger strike, but the conclusion of this form of struggle.”
Shabana Azmi said, “We have failed as a generation to do good to our Gen Z, but you people have shown us the way forward.”