No more protests, agitations, dharnas on campus: Osmania University issues circular

Hyderabad: Osmania University has banned agitations, dharnas, and demonstrations within its departments, colleges, centers, and administrative buildings.

The university administration issued a circular to all students on Saturday evening. It prohibits any kind of trespassing, staging dharnas and agitations, raising slogans etc in the premises of the departments, colleges, administrative buildings of the varsity.

It has come to the notice of the administration that several incidents of students, student groups were entering the departments, colleges and administrative building to stage demonstrations and dharna and these incidents tarnish the image of the University in the society.

Under the new directive, preventing administrative authorities and staff from carrying out their official duties and using “unparliamentary and filthy language” against them is also prohibited.

The decision comes after the University officials taken the matter seriously as the repeated protests had obstructed the administrative works academic session and at times, these incidents have also caused security issues and concerns.

While warning the students of serious repercussions as per law if anyone found involved in the above ‘activities’, the University statement said it remains committed to resolving concerns of its stakeholders (students on its rolls).

It also encouraged the students with genuine grievance about the functioning of the University system to avail the existing grievance redressal mechanism by first approaching the respective authority at the institution level and if the issue is not resolved, they may represent to the Registrar and the authorities, with prior permission.

Recently, the students of Osmania University had staged a dharna protesting the alleged poor quality food being served at the university’s hostel mess. One of the students had found a razor blade in a curry served for dinner in the hostel mess.

The incident was reported at the university’s Godavari hostel. The students carried a cart loaded with a curry vessel and the food plate in which the blade was found and kept it on the thoroughfare before launching a protest.

The students raised slogans against the administration and alleged that the varsity is playing with their lives. They wanted immediate action from the Vice Chancellor Prof M Kumar against those responsible.