By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
Students of Banaras Hindu University continued their sit in dharna at the main gate of BHU on Saturday.
On Saturday morning, the few University officials along with some girl students tried to bring the girls again to the VC’s house for the talk. But the girls did not agree to this. Students are asking VC either to come on the university’s main gate or to the Mahila Mahavidyalaya to talk and comply to the demands of the girls.
According to one administrative source, the administration is trying to bring the VC before girls so that forceful or violent situation may get avoided. But as one protesting student, Rani Yadav told us, “VC fears us. He does not obey any administrative body other than those Khaki half pants,” making it very clear that the fight is of the girls for every girl studying in the campus. Sure the University has gone full on the girl’s way.
Students have raised demands to equip the gates of girls hostels with CCTV. They have also asked the administration to ensure the presence of guards for 24-hours a day.
These demands mean a reason to the girls. Boys are used to masturbate in front of the girls’ hostels. There have been several reports where boys threw stones and other objectionable items inside the girls’ hostels, but these issues have never been resolved.
Earlier, Prime Minister Narendra Modi who was in Varanasi had to change his route to avoid the proteting students. “SPG asked for threat assessment on the night before PM’s visit to Varanasi. It was all fine, but everything changed next morning. We had to change our assessment and SPG had to change PM’s route,” said an LIU official while talking casually to this reporter.
The protest by girl students began on the evening of September 21 when a girl was harassed by three boys of the University when she was coming to the hostel from the library. The boys allegedly physically assaulted her and used derogatory language.
When the girl reached the Chief Procter of the University, she was first asked that what she was doing outside at such “late hours” of the day. Furious by such comments and the inactivity of the proctorial board of the University, girls assembled at the main gate of the University are still there.
Around 15 years back the University saw a massive protest which students led for the removal of the then vice-chancellor YC Simhadri. This time the protesting students, which are mostly girls, are not demanding the removal of any official. The protesting students of the University have avoided any sort of political interference.
However, It seems that current vice-chancellor GC Tripathi is not willing to talk to the girls. But the administration has used applied every measure to dissolve the protest.
There have been efforts to derail the agitation. Yesterday, few girls favoring ABVP landed to the protest site and started asking the girl students to start protesting at the VC’s house instead of the main gate of the University. However, this tactic failed miserably.
Late night yesterday, few students hurled large posters of “Unsafe BHU” and “Safety First” at the main gate of BHU. Making the poster an excuse, ABVP boys tried to instigate a fight with the protestors, apparently giving a reason to the Police to use force. But this was avoided peacefully by the protestors.