KOLKATA: The student unrest at Presidency University here continued on Saturday, with West Bengal Governor Kesari Nath Tripathi saying that the students should concentrate on their studies instead of staging protests or agitations. And the incident occurred during the convocation ceremony.
After the convocation ceremony, Tripathi said, “Students come here to learn and not agitate and protest. It’s not a good thing at all.”
The Governor’s convoy was stopped by the protesting students when it entered the campus. And state Education Minister Partha Chatterjee had travelled in the Governor’s vehicle since the students had vowed not to let him enter the varsity campus.
The students are demanding the resignation of Vice-Chancellor Anuradha Lohia alleging that the police had attacked them after they had demonstrated with black flags when Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee visited the campus on Friday.
The students had been protesting since Friday evening and had confined Lohia to her chamber for 22 hours. They allowed her to go to the Derozio Hall where the convocation was held after she assured them that she would return to her chamber.
Tension prevailed outside the campus as the protest marches taken out by the SFI and the Trinamool Congress’ (TMC) students’ wing came face to face. While the SFI expressed solidarity with the protesting students of the Presidency, led by the Students Union controlled by Independent Consolidation and some SFI cadre, the TMC students’ wing condemned it.
The students are demanding action against some TMC leaders and workers, who had allegedly ransacked the Baker Laboratory and attacked students inside the campus on April, 2013, and the withdrawal of false cases against some of the students.
As the protest continued even as the convocation ceremony went on, both the Governor and the Education Minister had to be escorted out through another gate instead of the main gate through which they had entered.
V-C Lohia lost her cool and said, “Who are these students? I don’t know them. From which families do they hail from?”