30 OU students detained for holding protest in solidarity with EFLU students
The activists of the Students Federation of India (SFI) and All India Student Federation (AISF) were detained and taken to the Osmania University police station at around 9 p.m.
By Newsmeter Network Published on 21 March 2021 9:15 AM GMT
Hyderabad: Around 24 student activists from Osmania University and 8 students from English and Foreign Language University(EFLU) were detained by the police on 20 March for organizing a sleep-in protest outside the EFLU in solidarity with the students who were protesting demanding the opening of the university hostels.
The activists of the Students Federation of India (SFI) and All India Student Federation (AISF) were detained and taken to the Osmania University police station at around 9 p.m. They were later released after being detained for an hour. According to police, these students were detained so as to avoid a large gathering when the state is seeing a surge of COVID-19 cases.
"We came from OU at around 8 p.m to show our solidarity with the protesting students of EFLU. Within an hour, the OU police came and detained us," said one of the detained students.
It may be recalled that on 14 March, 14 EFLU students were detained while protesting peacefully outside the university gate.
A representative of the EFLU students' action committee said, "The administration is not paying any heed to the demands of hundreds of students who are struggling with the online classes. The underlying situation with the students here in the campus is that they don't want to see students even protesting against the administration. Within a week, the administration called the police twice and detained the students."
The students said they had submitted a detailed proposal regarding which students should be allowed to come back to the campus considering that only 50 per cent of the total students can be called back as per the latest UGC guidelines.
"Even after we submitted our proposal on 18 February, the administration did not want to meet us and provided no follow-ups on the proposal they asked us to prepare. On top of that, they released a circular regarding 'in-person classes' on the evening of 18 February completely circumventing our demands. The truth is that we never demanded the resumption of in-person classes in the first place. We have only been demanding access to the hostels and other facilities for students who are in need," said the representative of the EFLU students' action committee.
