AMU Students lay siege, VC flees

The vice-chancellor of Aligarh Muslim University had to flee his house under police protection yesterday after students, who have the support of political parties, locked him inside demanding the revival of the students’ union.

“As many as 150 students had blocked the entrance of the vice-chancellor’s residence yesterday. The VC was under siege and he could not move till police escort came. The students are still there. They are refusing to let anyone go anywhere near the vice-chancellor’s residence,” university spokesperson Rahat Abrar said from Aligarh.

The students, protesting since October 4 on the road outside vice-chancellor P.K. Abdul Azis’s house, locked its gates after he had come home for lunch.

On a relay fast since October 13, the protesters are squatting indefinitely in front of the houses of the vice-chancellor and the registrar on the campus.

Azis, his wife and their household help were escorted out by the police last evening. The district administration has thrown a security ring around Exhibition Guesthouse, around 4km from the campus, where the vice-chancellor and his family have taken shelter. The registrar has also been rescued and has moved to a relative’s house.

The vice-chancellor, who set up a 10-member committee last week to look into the students’ agitation, had said he was not against a union.

“The priority is to have a peaceful, healthy campus. Once the atmosphere is conducive, I will restore the union but not till the criminal elements retreat from the campus,” he said.

Azis had joined AMU in 2007, when campus unrest had killed three students in a month. He dissolved the union, which the university administration accuses of turning the campus into a criminal hub between 2005 and 2007. He has pointed to the Lyngdoh Committee report that leaves it to the vice-chancellor’s discretion whether to have a union or not.

However, almost all political parties are backing the demand for the union’s revival.

“We support the demand of the students as the union symbolises healthy student activity,” said Kokab Hameed, a former Uttar Pradesh minister and Rashtriya Lok Dal Leader as well as a member of the university’s old boys’ association.

Youth Congress leader Abdul Hafiz Gandhi also extended his support to the students but advised them to shun violence.

Aligarh leaders of the Samajwadi Party have openly supported the protest. Student leaders affiliated to the party had dominated the union before it was disbanded.

Azis, who has said he will not let some political leaders hold a university to ransom, told a governing body meeting recently: “The union leaders were involved in criminal activities. They were seen taking money from contractors. So the university now needs a healing touch.”

The protesting students have issued a 72-hour ultimatum to the university administration and threatened to disrupt normal activities if their demands are not met.

“The agitation has been on since October 4 near the vice-chancellor’s residence. Every day the vice-chancellor would go past us but not take notice of us at all. So we decided to lay siege to his house,” said Mushtaq Ahmad, a student leader.