Students’ body writes to president, seeks intervention

THE AKHIL BHARATIYA DALIT AND MUSLIM MAHASANGH HAS APPEALED TO THE GOVERNOR AND THE CM TO SET UP A HIGH-LEVEL INQUIRY COMMITTEE.

The matter of eight dalit students having been rusticated from Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University (BBAU) reached the office of the President of India on Saturday. Chhatra Yuva Sangharsh Samiti of Chhattisgarh wrote a letter to the President Pranab Mukherjee and sought his intervention in the case.

In the letter, the CYSS office bearer said that dalit students across the nation were victims of atrocities. “Dalits are being targeted with malicious intentions. A similar incident has taken place at Lucknow’s Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, where eight students were rusticated for allegedly beating up professor Kamal Jaiswal, who was accused of exploiting girls,” read the letter.

In another development, Suresh Kanojea, national president, Akhil Bharatiya Dalit and Muslim Mahasangh visited Lucknow on Saturday to meet governor Ram Naik, chief minister Akhilesh Yadav and the vice chancellor of BBAU, RC Sobti, to demand that the students be allowed to enter the university and join back the classes.

The national president of the mahasangh appealed to the governor and the CM to look into the matter and set up a high-level inquiry committee.

After BBAU rusticated the dalit students on September 8, an order was circulated by the administration ordering them to vacate the hostel immediately.

To protest against the decision, the dalit students had filed a complaint with the ministry of human resource development. The students had alleged that prof Jaiswal was biased against dalit students since the beginning of his tenure.

They had also alleged that they were being threatened by the university administration as they had approached the National Commission for Scheduled Castes and other departments of the union government.

Shreyat Bouddh, one of the rusticated dalit students said, “Incidents of similar nature are occurring on a daily basis, which discriminate against the dalits, adivasis, other backward classes, minorities and students with marginalised backgrounds, across the universities of the country.”

He added, “We, Ambedkar University Dalit Students’ Union, BBAU, Lucknow, strongly condemn the brahminical hegemony and caste-based prejudices of the varsity administration.”