Students and faculty members of the JNU and other Central universities expressed displeasure over the police crackdown on students in Hyderabad Central University on Tuesday against the rejoining of vice-chancellor Appa Rao. The police action came after students shouted slogans against the V-C whom they alleged was responsible for the death of Rohith Vemula. Delhi University student Snehal Sahay said, “First it was JNU and now its Hyderabad University. Why police intervention has been made necessary in universities We are students and we have the right to raise our voice against anything wrong that happens on our campuses. I read a post on the social networking site which said 36 students and two faculties have been sent to prison and many were sent to hospitals as they were bleeding badly. This is the limit of brutality.”
Vibha, a JNU Ph.D. student who expressed her anger towards the incident, said, “The government simply does not understand that the university does not want any kind of police intervention. It’s inhuman. We stand firmly in solidarity with HCU. We are one in cause and we strongly condemn the police action on students.”
Many students said the police crackdown was just like the 1977 Emergency.
Ambedkar University PG student Nilay Sharma said, “Whatever happened in Hyderabad resembled like the state of Emergency in 1977. They beat up the students black and blue. Even girls were not spared. This is a shameful brutal act of the university which allowed the police enter the campus. If this was not enough, they even blocked varsity’s Internet, stopped serving food in their mess.”
