STUDENT LEADERS took out a procession and gheraoed the district backward class welfare office for three hours here on Thursday.
They were protesting against delay in payment of scholarship to Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe and Other Backward Class students. Shravan Kumar Nirala, Surendra Bharti, Sanjay Yadav and Manoranjan Yadav led the protest, raised slogans against officials and bolted the office door.
Policemen rushed to the spot to handle the situation and faced a tough time. They tried to pacify the students and threw a security cordon around the backward class welfare officer.
Staging a dharna under the leadership of Surendra Bharti, student leaders blamed the administration for ignoring Other Backward Classes and SC, ST students in distribution of scholarship. Bharti blamed the government for meting out step-motherly treatment to SC students. Ambika Prasad Bharti and Chandra Vijay said the agitation could take a violent turn if the administration tried to suppress it forcibly.
Sanjay Yadav said the delay in disbursing scholarship to students was a conspiracy to sully the image of the government. He said activists would lock the office once again if scholarship was not distributed in two days. Senior Congress leader Qamruzzama Ansari condemned the State Government for bifurcating scholarship for minority students into backward and upper class categories. He said funds for disbursal of scholarship to backward Muslims were shifted to the backward welfare department.