JNU students protest outside HRD ministry, 36 detained

JNU students led by their union president Kanhaiya Kumar today staged a protest outside HRD ministry demanding that reservation to OBC candidates be granted for appointments at associate professor level, following which 36 of them were detained.

The students had yesterday gone to University Grants Commission (UGC) and submitted a memorandum that the OBC reservation be implemented, at both professor and associate professor level, in promotions and the number of national fellowships for OBCs be increased.

The students claimed that UGC had recently said 27 per OBC reservation is applicable only at the level of assistant professor and demanded that it be implemented at both the levels.

However, UGC had yesterday clarified that there has been no change in reservation policy for teachers in universities. According to police officials, 36 students were detained as a preventive measure to maintain law and order situation.  They were released later.

However, after being released from Parliament Street police station, the students staged an agitation outside UP Bhawan demanding justice in the Dadri lynching case.

The trigger for the protest was a Mathura-based forensic laboratory’s report that the meat collected from the crime scene in Dadri where 50-year-old Mohd Akhlaq was allegedly lynched over rumour that his family had stored and consumed beef, was actually meat of cow or its progeny.

25 students, including Kanhaiya were detained from the spot and taken to the same police station.