VIOLENCE AT M.G COLLEGE, THRUVANANTHAPURAM
USE OF BATONS
The
police swung batons to disperse the students and detained 10 of them. They were
yet to finalise the charges against the detainees. An official said some of
those detained could be innocent. The police were verifying their complicity in
the crime.Scores of freshers and their guardians, who were at the college to
complete their admission process, were witness to the reportedly wanton
violence.The chain of events, which resulted in Monday’s campus violence, had
begun in April when MG College principal Sudheendran Kidangoor objected to the
ABVP college unit collecting money in the name of the student’s union from
first- and second-year degree students to organise an “evening farewell party”
for final-year students inside the campus on April 15.The police said the
principal’s objection was on the ground that the college was closed for
vacation and that the function could be allowed only during the day and that
too under strict supervision of the college authorities. Moreover, the elected
student union’s tenure had ended.
In a
related development, the Kerala Women’s Commission launched an enquiry on its
own after it came to know that some student activists had detained a girl
student for over seven hours in one of the rooms they frequently used for union
and political activities.The Commission’s move put immense pressure on the
college management, and the principal ordered his staff to take control of the
rooms allegedly appropriated by the ABVP activists. The police said teachers
found scores of wooden staffs and iron rods in the three rooms.The principal
also objected to the activists collecting money from students in the name of
the college management, to hold a festival in the name of a religious seer. The
programme never took place. The NSS management wrote to the principal asking
him not to allow any person or organisation to use the college’s name for fund
raising. The police said a set of students vandalised the notice board on which
the management’s decision was put up for public perusal. In July, the college
authorities moved the High Court and procured an order securing police
protection to “keep at bay” political activity that could potentially disrupt
the institution’s peaceful academic climate.
Following
this, the college council and its disciplinary committee dismissed a few
students, after serving them and their guardian’s explanation notices, on the
ground that they eroded the college’s peaceful atmosphere.The dismissal of
students led to a series of attacks against the council and committee members,
including teachers, staff and also security men. Miscreants hurled bombs at the
house of a teacher and damaged his car last week. The principal and his family
also received anonymous threats.A member of the college management said some of
the activities of the student’s union bordered on ragging. They allowed no
other political outfit to function on the campus. Sympathisers of other
political parties were often hounded and terrorised.
The
activists held impromptu trials in front of the rooms they once controlled and
meted out corporal punishment to students who refused to attend their party
programmes.The police have been deployed in strength on the college campus to
prevent any further escalation of violence and thwart any attempt at sabotage.
They have extended protection to the houses of the principal and other senior
staff members. The NSS is scheduled to hold a meeting at the college on
Wednesday to form a people’s front, including local opinion makers, traders,
its unit members, and former students, to protect the institution from further
acts of vandalism. The police have registered cases of rioting, use of
explosives and attack on uniformed men in connection with the incident.
Prof. John Kurakar
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