Police beat up students, professors

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, SEPT. 27. The protest by students of the University of Agricultural Sciences (UAS) over handing over the university's land to the Government for bio-technology and information technology parks turned violent today.

More than 75 students and professors were injured when police lathicharged them and lobbed teargas shells at them after the protesters, armed with clubs, allegedly violated the prohibitory orders at the Gandhi Krishi Vijnana Kendra (GKVK) campus.

At least 18 policemen - three Assistant Commissioners of Police, four inspectors and 11 constables - were injured when the students allegedly attacked them with clubs and threw stones at them, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (North), Mr. S. K. Venugopal, said.

After the clash, the entire campus, including hostel and office blocks, was littered with stones, bricks, tiles, logs and footwear. Glass panes of a few rooms were shattered.

The UAS Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Krishnappa, has lodged a protest with the Governor, Ms. V. S. Rama Devi, and the Agriculture Minister, Mr. T. B. Jayachandra, over the police clamping ban orders on the campus and the ``excesses'' committed on students and his staff.

He offered to resign for failing to ``protect'' his students, colleagues and university property from the police ``attack.'' He alleged that various buildings and other assets of the university had been damaged in the incident. He said the Governor was ``unhappy'' over ban orders imposed on the campus and had asked the Director-General and Inspector-General of Police, Mr. V. V. Bhaskar, to lift the same.

Trouble started around 9.00 a.m. when more than 500 students gathered near the land where the Government proposed to set up the two parks. The students tried to prevent the Karnataka Land Army Corporation (KLAC) personnel from cutting the trees.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police said that police resorted to lathicharge after the students attacked them, violated prohibitory orders and obstructed the KLAC staff from razing the trees.

The students told The Hindu that it was the police who ``provoked'' them when they hugged the trees to prevent the KLAC from felling them. They said that they were not aware of the prohibitory orders being in force.

``Mr. Venugopal, inspectors, Mr. Hanumanthaiah and Mr. Shankaraiah, asked their men to charge at us,'' the students said and added that they attacked the police with clubs and stones in ``self-defence.''

Showing their injuries, students said that police had trooped into the library, hostel rooms, dining halls, and TV room and assaulted them indiscriminately. ``Even innocent girl students and senior professors who were in the library were not spared by the police,'' the Vice-Chancellor and students said.

Prof. P. G. Chengappa, Director of Instruction (Agriculture), who is next to the Vice-Chancellor in the hierarchy, Prof. Chame Gowda and Prof. Qameer Ali, Associate Professors in the Department of Soil Science, Dr. Savithramma, Professor of Genetics, Dr. Udaya Kumar and Prof. A.G. Shankar from Department of Crop Psychology, and Prof. Gracy from the Department of Agricultural Economics were allegedly dragged out of their chambers and beaten up by the police.

More than a dozen undergraduate and postgraduate students, including Mr. Mallikarjuna Gowda, President of the Students' Union, Mr. Tejas, Mr. Harish Babu, Mr. Mahantesh, Mr. Manjunath, Mr. Muthuraj, Mr. Sunil Kumar, and Mr. Thirumalesh, were injured.

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