Peace march in support of protesters; VC’s ‘whereabouts’ not known
Shillong, Nov 11: Aggravating the situation arising out of the students’ protest at North Eastern Hill University (NEHU), unknown miscreants have vandalised the vice-chancellor’s official residence and his vehicle amid allegations of the VC “gone missing”.
The attack on the VC’s residence took place on Saturday night amid protesters demanding the VC’s resignation and removal of the registrar and the deputy registrar.
Normal functioning in the university has been affected for six days as students protested and camped at the VC’s office demanding removal of registrar and deputy registrar of the varsity, alleging “illegalities” in their appointment.
Further scaling up their demands, the students have also sought resignation of the VC Prof Prabha Shankar Shukla for his “adamant” attitude towards the key demands of the NEHU Students’ Union (NEHUSU) and Khasi Students’ Union (KSU) NEHU unit, which have been spearheading the protests.
“An FIR has been filed by the acting registrar of the university against the incident and accordingly a case has been registered,” SP (City) Dara Ashwagosh said.
He informed that additional forces had been deployed at the residence of the VC.
Asked, the SP said the VC was not present at his official residence when the incident took place.
“When we visited the place of occurrence, he (VC) was also not there,” he said while adding the police are enquiring into the matter including the VC’s “whereabouts”, which was not known till filing of this report.
The SP said that investigation is on and no arrest has been made so far.
Earlier, the SP along with the district magistrate had stopped students from taking out a peace march through the VC’s official residence.
The march was organised by the Research Scholar Forum of NEHU in support of the demands of the agitating students.
Alleging that the VC had “gone missing” since Saturday night, the Forum’s president Superior Syngkli said, “Chief security officer of the VC has assured us that FIR will be filed since the VC is missing without filing for leave application.”
Meanwhile, the agitating students have rejected outright the VC’s invitation to engage in a dialogue to resolve the issues and instead sought the latter’s resignation.
Earlier, people from all walks of life, especially students from NEHU and other educational institutions, women and NGOs took part in a peace march to express solidarity with the agitating students inside the campus.
The march began with a prayer meeting at the Science Cluster of NEHU and ended with a peace march to the Administrative Block, the venue where the students are on an indefinite hunger strike for the past six days.
