Ragging accused create ruckus
LUCKNOW: Just about the time on Thursday when Vidhan Sabha was giving final shape to the anti-ragging Act, a group of student leaders in Lucknow University staged a protest against a senior professor who was about to take action against those alleged of ragging the junior students.
The high voltage drama unfolded on the LU campus in the afternoon when some of the student leaders alleged chief provost and director of Academic Staff College Prof Nishi Pandey of misbehaving with a student Digvijay Singh while he was on his way to the Department of Linguistics in which is enrolled.
Prof Pandey, however, shrugged off the charges. Instead, she said, Digvijay "deliberately" came in between the conversation she was having with a couple of students of BA (II) whose name had figured in the list of those involved in ragging of juniors. According to the version given by Prof Pandey to media, she along with proctor AN Singh had definite information that some of the students in Acharya Narendra Dev hostel had indulged in ragging of first-year students. In fact, she charged, ragging was being done in the presence of some students leaders in room number 105, 106 and 126.
It was following this that the LU administration had given a notice to the occupants of these three rooms. Occupant of room number 105, Sandeep Kumar, was, however, out of station. It was thus occupants of room number 106 and 126, Ranvijay Singh and Mrityunjay Yadav, respectively, who had gone to meet Prof Pandey. They even gave an application to the chief provost claiming that they were not involved in any kind of ragging. It was while they were on way to Prof Pandey's office that they were intercepted by a student, Maan Singh, a student of III rd semester, Criminology. Both Digvijay and Mrityunjay, confirmed this to the media.
Maan Singh, according to the duo, said that he would get the matter solved with the chief provost. The two, however, "refused the help" offered by Singh. Maan Singh soon left.
"But then came in this boy Ranvijay, and he stood close to us. I asked him to show his ID card and leave. But he started misbehaving. I was thus forced to deposit his ID," Prof Nishi said.
It was then Ranvijay started shouting and called upon students like Abhishek Mishra alias 'Baba', who claims himself to be a student leader. Incidentally, Ranvijay, Maan Singh and Baba had been arrested by police on September 9 on charges of rowdyism inside the university premises. Maan Singh, later talking to media, admitted this.
The student leaders soon gathered around the Academic Staff College, sat on a dharna and started raising slogans against the chief provost, who then called in the police. Ranvijay, who had occupied the centrestage by then, insisted that it was the chief provost who misbehaved and hurled abuses.
Proctor AN Singh said that such rowdyism would not be tolerated at any cost. "We would soon take some serious action which would also include getting an FIR lodged against all such rowdy students," Singh said.
Incidentally, the agitation comes barely a month before when LU vice-chancellor Prof RP Singh - who dealt with rowdy students with an iron hand -is set to complete his term. Faculty members observed that the agitation was part of the rowdy student's larger game plan to influence the students with their "leadership" qualities.
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