Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) on Saturday announced shifting all classes online as the ongoing campus protest seeking restoration of the students’ union intensified. Tensions flared between teaching staff and students on Saturday, amid allegations of forceful confrontation between the two sides.
In a statement, the university said it decided to ensure the safety and security of “bona fide students” for moving the classes online. “In view of the ongoing situation and in order to ensure the safety and security of bona fide students in the university campus, the competent authority, JMI has decided to conduct classes of all courses of the university through online mode with immediate effect until further notice,” a notice signed by JMI registrar Mohd Mahtab Alam Rizvi stated.
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Student's demand a union
The JMI administration said that around 1,500 teaching and non-teaching staff members, along with vice-chancellor Mazhar Asif and registrar Mahtab Alam Rizvi, met on Saturday morning to discuss the way forward. The JMI said that staff reached the protest site to engage with the students and persuade them to end the protest.
“After two hours of efforts to persuade the students to call off the protest and restore normalcy on campus, the students continued chanting slogans, shouting and suddenly began pushing security guards, staff and teachers, refusing to heed to repeated appeals from senior faculty members, even after their demands had been met earlier this week. Eventually, the teachers and staff withdrew from the protest site and returned to the Ansari Auditorium,” JMI said.
{{/usCountry}}“After two hours of efforts to persuade the students to call off the protest and restore normalcy on campus, the students continued chanting slogans, shouting and suddenly began pushing security guards, staff and teachers, refusing to heed to repeated appeals from senior faculty members, even after their demands had been met earlier this week. Eventually, the teachers and staff withdrew from the protest site and returned to the Ansari Auditorium,” JMI said.
{{/usCountry}}The university has set up a committee to draft the students’ union constitution, whose elections were last held in 2006. However, students have stuck to their demand to notify the elections and hold them soon.
Saurabh Tripathi, a student protester and secretary of the All India Students’ Association at Jamia, said the move aims to curb the movement and discourage more students from joining the protests, even as negotiations with a committee formed by the administration continue.
Videos surfaced on social media purportedly showing people removing a protest camp set up by students at Gulistan-i-Ghalib Garden near Gate No. 7. HT could not independently verify the videos’ authenticity.
Also Read I Demand for students' union, row over ‘slogans’ trigger tensions in Jamia Millia Islamia
Ebin Basil, a 22-year-old student who has been on the hunger strike since October 12, said, “The teaching staff forcibly removed the tent and asked students to disperse. The students feared that the administration would detain us, so they shifted us inside the building.”
Students said they reclaimed the protest site on Saturday evening and rebuilt the camps that were removed.
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