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PU: Month on, four students booked for heckling VC
Three NSUI members and woman member of PSU-Lalkar face charges of restraining and hurting PU VC Raj Kumar during student protest on September 1
Almost a month after Panjab University vice-chancellor Raj Kumar was heckled by students during his visit to the Law Auditorium during senate elections, Chandigarh Police have registered a case against four.
Rahul, Pargat Singh and Sarvottam Rana of the National Students Union of India (NSUI), and Amandeep, a woman member of Punjab Students Union (PSU)-Lalkar, have been named in the FIR registered at the police station in Sector 11.
The case has been registered under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 341 (wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code. If convicted, the students face up to one-year imprisonment.
What had happened
Raj Kumar had gone to vote for the law faculty polls when the incident took place on September 1. After he came out of the auditorium, the students raised slogans against him and interrupted him while he tried to enter into his vehicle. He even tried to sit on the motorcycle with a security guard before he managed to enter his vehicle.
The students were on an indefinite protest, demanding the reopening of campus and immediate conduct of polling for the senate’s registered graduate constituency. A day earlier, they had also locked the main entrance of the varsity’s administration block.
According to the complaint submitted by PU’s chief of security Vikram Singh, students tried to restrain the V-C when he stepped out of the auditorium and kept banging on his vehicle.
‘We did not hurt V-C’
Amandeep, who has been booked, said: “We had been protesting peacefully for 25 days, and did not hurt the V-C in any way. He didn’t even stop to talk to us at the protest site. Instead of fulfilling our demands, the university is trying to terrify students by pressing criminal charges. The authorities could have resolved the matter internally.”
Nikhil Narmeta, president, NSUI, said: “The university authorities should not have allowed police interference in internal matters. Pressing criminal charges against students, who were just protesting for their rights, is unjust. The students only wanted to talk to the V-C regarding their demands.”
