Visva Bharati University registrar leaves office after 84 hours, students continue protest

The registrar had left his office on Thursday night after Calcutta High Court directed the police to ensure that the officers of the central university should not be obstructed from performing their duty or the registrar from moving freely in Shantiniketan by the students.

Visva Bharati University registrar leaves office after 84 hours, students continue protest

After 84 hours, Visva Bharati registrar Ashish Agarwal finally left his office in the University at Santiniketan, while students continued their sit-in protest at the campus for over 96 hours. Students have been staging protests demanding the reopening of hostels which was earlier closed due to COVID-19 induced lockdown. 

The registrar had left his office on Thursday night after Calcutta High Court directed the police to ensure that the officers of the central university should not be obstructed from performing their duty or the registrar from moving freely in Shantiniketan by the students. The official said the personnel from the local police station left the campus after the registrar went to his official residence and only Visva Bharati security personnel, who regularly man the gates and are in charge of security, are present as usual.

SFI leader in the university, Somnath Sow said the students had urged the registrar to leave the office on Tuesday morning itself when the students began their sit-in but he had refused and stayed put in his chamber. The students, he said, vacated his office and camped outside on the lawn.

"How can we leave till our friends get hostel accommodations? Since the university is not responsive to our needs, we prefer to stay in the open inside the campus. We are not creating any law and order situation. It is our right to be on the campus as students." Sow told PTI.

He said the sit-in by the students, which had begun last March 1 at around 11 am first inside the chamber of the registrar in the central office building and then outside the main building in the open lawn from the next day, will continue indefinitely till the hostels are reopened. 

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