3 Hyderabad varsity students suspended for abusing wardens

HYDERABAD: THE UNIVERSITY, WHICH HAD SUSPENDED SEVEN OTHER STUDENTS FOR SIX MONTHS ON SIMILAR CHARGES, REDUCED THEIR SUSPENSION PERIOD TO SIX WEEKS

The University of Hyderabad has suspended three post-graduate students, including a female student, for two years on charges of manhandling and abusing wardens during their surprise check of the men’s hostel on November 3.

The decision was taken by the executive council (EC) of the university at its December 2 meeting based on the council report.

Vice-chancellor Podile Appa Rao ratified the suspension of the three students — Pratyush Nirjher, Sagnik Saha and V Athira Unni — from all academic programmes and hostel.

The university, which had suspended seven other students — Tinanjali Dam, Kesaban Sankar Roy Chouduri, Shivam Goswami, Sahith Mandapalli, Venkateshwarlu Yerukala, Arpith Shankar and Yamarthi Sai Kumar — for six months on similar charges, reduced their suspension period to six weeks.

“In both the cases, students will not be entitled to hostel admission upon resumption of their studies,” a university spokesperson said.

The 10 students were placed under suspension on November 7 on charges of assaulting and abusing faculty wardens on November 3. The suspension led to an uproar among the students, who took out protest demonstrations on the campus.

A week later, the university authorities entrusted the probe to the EC and asked the students to represent their versions to the EC. “Pending the EC probe, the university kept the suspension order in abeyance and permitted them to appear for the end semester exams,” the spokesperson said. Recalling the November 3 incident, the spokesperson said when a team of faculty wardens conducted a surprise check at the men’s hostel on the campus, they discovered a girl student in a male boarder’s room against hostel rules.

“When the wardens asked them for their identity cards, they refused to comply and started shouting slogans. This attracted many other students who surrounded the room and began hurling abuses. They switched off the lights and manhandled the wardens in the dark,” the varsity official said.

“While the students confined the wardens in the room for a long period, they also blocked other wardens from approaching this room. The same student in whose room a girl student was seen had been issued a show-cause notice earlier for breaking hostel rules on the same issue,” the spokesperson pointed out.

Describing the surprise inspection of the wardens late in the night as nothing but moral policing, the suspended students rejected the charges of the university authorities that they had resorted to manhandling of wardens. “The girl told the authorities that she had come to her classmate’s room in the men’s hostel to discuss some project work for the exams. The students only questioned the wardens for disturbing them and intimidate them,” one of the students explained.