NEW DELHI: The Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS), a student outfit, on Monday held a protest rally against what it called "hooliganism" of the Delhi University's School of Open Learning (SOL) administration and demanded the immediate sacking of its officiating principal Uma Shankar Pandey.
Pandey, however, rejected the allegation and said that protesters are trying to defame the institution.
The student outfit held the protest rally from Delhi University's SOL to the Vice Chancellor's Office, days after some students were allegedly beaten up "at the behest of the SOL officiating principal".
Holding banners and pamphlets reading "we demand parity among education institutions" and "will not tolerate misconduct with SOL students", the protesters demanded justice and commencement of offline classes.
Later in the day, a delegation met with the DU authorities and submitted a memorandum addressed to Delhi University Vice-Chancellor Yogesh Singh, the student union said in a statement.
The KYS has claimed that a delegation of students was beaten up by the SOL administration on Thursday when they held a demonstration regarding issues affecting them, including non-commencement of offline classes, late distribution of study materials and the mode of exams.
"KYS condemns SOL's hooliganistic attitude in strongest terms and demands that the SOL administration must issue a public apology, and the hooligan SOL officiating principal must be sacked from his post," it said in the statement.
Reacting to the memorandum, SOL officiating principal Pandey alleged that the protesters were not students of the SOL and they were trying to "defame" the institution.
"They are trying to defame the DU SOL. I don't know what purpose it will serve. They were not the students of SOL. Only four or five students were among them. We have five lakh students in the SOL and we have taken several initiatives for them. They are doing silly things," Pandey told PTI.
Pandey had filed a police complaint against KYS on Friday, while the student outfit also gave a complaint to the police.
The SOL officiating principal clarified that the action against the protesters on Thursday was taken after demonstrators misbehaved with the female guard at the SOL.
"We informed the Delhi University officials as per the rules, who in turn, asked us to file a report with police and then only we filed a complaint," Pandey said.
Despite DU reopening on February 17, SOL has not started offline classes, the student union added.
The student outfit also raised the issue of the mode of the upcoming examination.
"The students are anxious about the mode of examination for the fourth and sixth semesters as SOL is to conduct physical mode examinations in May. This is highly problematic as these batches of students would be taking examinations in the physical mode for the first time without any grounding in this mode," the student body noted.