By IANS,
Pune : Two days after targeting the high profile Maharashtra Institute of Technology (MIT) here, activists of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) Monday attacked two more educational institutes besides the income tax office for discriminating against local youths in preference to “outsiders”.
At the receiving end of the Bharatiya Vidyarthi Sena (MNS student wing) activists’ ire were the Indira Institute of Management at Wakad and the G. H. Raisoni College at Wagholi.
MNS youths also tried to vandalise the income tax office at Sadhu Waswani Chowk but security personnel and police chased them away.
A day earlier, the activists prevented north Indians from appearing for apprenticeship examination for recruitment at the Ordnance Board’s Ammunition Factory at Khadki near here. Close to 1,600 students from all over the country had come for the examination conducted by the board.
While details of the police action against the protesters for damaging furniture at the two institutes were not immediately known, Vidyarthi Sena city unit president Kishore Shinde told IANS that the MNS offensive would continue, undeterred by whatever action the police might take.
“We will continue with our agitation. Our workers are not scared of punishment,” he said, adding that the institutes the activists were targeting were warned a month ago to desist from discriminating against local candidates in preference to north Indians paying huge donations.
“They did not even acknowledge receipt of our memoranda and have continued to accept hefty donations from non-Marathi students from other states and admit them,” Shinde alleged
Refuting the allegations, Milind Pande, project director of MIT School of Telecom and Management Studies, said: “We are accepting 20 percent students in the management quota as per the Supreme Court ruling for non-aided colleges; we accept a negotiated amount against admissions for the development funds.”
MIT has a total of 546 under graduate engineering seats, out of which 20 percent are earmarked under the management quota.
“Seats in the management quota are open to all those prepared to pay and also fulfill the criteria set by the college, 15 percent are for the reserved category and out of the remaining 65 percent, 30 percent seats are reserved for women and the rest are open for students from the state of Maharashtra,” Pande told IANS.
The admissions process in MIT was transparent and everything was done as per the rules set by the government of Maharashtra, he asserted.
“People flock to MIT because of its reputation, I feel it’s completely justified but they (MNS activists) just don’t want to listen”, Pande said in exasperation.