The Hindu : Students protest fee hike

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Jul 19, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh

Students protest fee hike

By Our Staff Reporter

Photo: P.V. Sivakumar

Police removing ABVP activists, who were protesting against the hike in engineering fee, at the Sanketika Bhavan in Hyderabad on Friday.

HYDERABAD JULY 18. The counselling for engineering admissions began on a violent note at all the five centres — Hyderabad, Visakhapatnam, Guntur, Warangal and Tirupati — with the police resorting to lathicharge on the students trying to stall the counselling process in protest against the fee hike in engineering courses.

Scores of students received injuries and some of them were admitted to the local hospitals. The police arrested more than 200 activists of different student groups belonging to the ABVP, NSUI, AISF, SFI, PDSU and AIDSO.

In Hyderabad, the students damaged television sets and threw away chairs at the counselling centre in Sanketika Vidya Bhavan at Masab Tank. The activists gathered at the venue much before the counselling began and stopped the students from going inside the counselling centre.

The agitating activists demanded the Technical Education Minister, Nerella Anjaneyulu, give them an assurance or else they would not allow the counselling to go ahead. As no response came, they threw out the chairs kept for the waiting students and the parents and later damaged television sets installed to display the seat position.

The agitators argued with police when the latter tried to evict them from the place. As the activists went on a damaging spree the police started canecharging them.

The unrelenting activists were then dragged and put into police vans.

Students and parents who came to attend counselling were caught in between the agitators and the police.

In Warangal, counselling was held up for two hours with the students' stir.

The activists tried to gatecrash into the counselling centre breaking the police cordon prompting a lathicharge.

Similar scenes were witnessed in Visakhapatnam, Guntur and Tirupati centres. About 100 activists were arrested in Guntur and later released on personal bail.

In Tirupati, 12 students were injured and they were shifted hospital while 17 activists were remanded.

The student organisations were demanding the restoration of the earlier "Free seat and Payment seat" concept, as poor people cannot afford the new fee of Rs. 22,000.

Earlier, fee for the free seat was Rs. 8,000 while the payment seat was Rs. 34,000.

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