Hyderabad: Students of the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU), Hyderabad, were forcibly detained by the cops from the Osmania police station on Sunday evening.
The students were on a 24-hour hunger strike with a demand to reopen the hostels, library and other campus facilities for the students. The hunger strike began at 12 PM outside Gate 2 of the university.
Students from EFLU have staged two sit-in protests so far, with the same demand in last one month. Both the times, negotiations were held between the administration and the students, but with no result.
The university administration promised to settle the issue and reopen the campus in a phased manner after asking the students to submit a detailed proposal with list of students who needed hostel accommodation.
Despite submitting a detailed proposal, the students have said that they never received any response on the proposal from the administration.
The Students’ Action Committee (SAC), an umbrella body of student groups formed specifically to work on the issue of reopening hostels and library facilities, conducted a survey which was filled by 845 students out of the 1300-strong student population of the varsity.
The details of the survey were attached to the proposal that was submitted to the administration on 18th February 2021. In the survey conducted by the SAC, 522 students mentioned that they needed access to the hostels urgently, which is almost 40% of the enrolled students.
The latest UGC guidelines allow up to 50% of the students on campus at any point of time. The results of the survey and the recently released UGC guidelines were attached and submitted by the SAC to the University administration.
The ELFY administration’s alleged unresponsiveness forced the students to sit on a hunger strike to assert their demands. The students also alleged that the administration has been adamant about not listening to them, especially those who hail from underprivileged backgrounds.
On Sunday, 14 students were detained by the cops at around 5.25 p.m., and later they were taken to Osmania University p“olice station.