Tension prevails on CU campus during SFI protest against Governor

Tension prevailed for a while on the main campus of the Calicut University (CU) at Tenhipalam in Malappuram district on Tuesday afternoon (July 8) when activists of the Students Federation of India (SFI) took out a march to register their protest against the alleged attempts by Governor Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar to “saffronise the higher education sector” in the State.

The protesting students initially tried to barge into the administrative building of the university by breaking open its door. However, police personnel blocked their way. A face-off between the activists and the police ensued as they tried to push away the latter. This was followed by heated arguments between the two. Subsequently, they managed to get inside the building and staged a protest there for around an hour. In the meantime, some other activists ran towards the vice-chancellor’s (V-C) official residence and scaled the compounding wall of the bungalow. When they realised that P. Raveendran, the V-C was not in the bungalow, some of them staged a sit-in protest outside the building. Another group forcibly entered the office of the V-C’s personal staff after breaking open the door lock. They also staged a sit-in protest.

In the absence of the V-C, the protesting students held talks with Syndicate members K. Pradeep Kumar, K. Mohammed Haneefa, and T. Vasumathi. The protest was called off after the Syndicate members agreed to their demands to conduct an investigation into the alleged grant of marks in violation of rules to a girl student, also an activist of the Kerala Students Union, at the Government Victoria College, Palakkad.