Our Correspondent
Lumami | September 6
An adamant Nagaland University vice chancellor Prof K Kannan and on the other side, unrelenting post-graduate students at loggerheads turned the 17th foundation day of Nagaland University literally a flop show. Slogan-shouting, military presence and placards and threats marked the day, and led to the cancellation of the day’s events.
It is informed that military forces were called in by the university officials. Kannan has denied the students’ allegation but staffers of NU say that the army was called in by the top officials.
The post-graduate students boycotted the programme and shouted slogans in front of the university’s auditorium and observed ‘black day’ by wearing black armbands to protest alleged negligence of the student’s welfare by the vice chancellor. The entire 14th foundation day programme was marked by slogan-shouting Post Graduate Students Union (Lumami), leading to the cancellation of the evening programme scheduled to be held in the new administrative block with the VC as the chief patron.
The main gate to the university’s auditorium was replete in placards: ‘VC do gooder image’; ‘We love the VC but we hate K Kannan’; ‘we are not criminals’; we don’t need paramilitary force in our compound’.
Speaking with some media persons at the Lumami campus, PGSU (L) leaders disclosed that the entire fracas started on Saturday evening when a university bus met with an accident near Lumami (at Sema Settsu village). No one was injured in the accident. However, the issue intensified, as the PGSU (L) has been demanding more transportation facilities as there are more than 350 students studying in Lumami. The students asked the vice chancellor to come and inspect but he went to Mokokchung instead to meet some guests in relation with the foundation day celebration.
“Is the foundation day more important or students’ life more important?” a PGSU (L) leader queried.
The students gathered at the administrative block demanding to meet the vice chancellor. Instead, the NU Registrar came out and ‘threatened’ the students, it was informed. A NU staffer, who said he was at the spot, also disclosed that the NU Registrar threatened the PGSU (L) members that he can bring in the paramilitary. “He (registrar) said, ‘if need be we can even bring in the paramilitary’,” said the staffer, “But we don’t know whether the Assam Rifles came because of the registrar or not.”
The students disclosed that a truckload of ‘army in full combat fatigue’ arrived at the scene on the night of September 4, when the VC finally agreed to meet the students. Kannan was accompanied by an Assam Rifles officer ‘in civilian dress”; the AR official introduced himself as another person, the students said.
Prof K Kannan strongly denied (during a meeting with the PGSU (L) at the new administrative block held at 4.10 pm) that he called the paramilitary forces on August 4 night. But the students refuse to accept his words and have demanded an apology.
“Even while the government of India is refusing the army to be used in the fight against the Maoist, how can the vice chancellor bring in the army to the campus to contain the peaceful protest of students who are just demanding their rights,” a PGSU (L) leader told media persons.
Today, while the students demanded to meet the VC at 3:30 pm on the assurance of the SDO (C) Akuluto, the VC failed to turn up. The incensed students marched to the new administrative block where Kannan was. They demanded to speak directly with the VC. After one hour of slogan-shouting and commotion, the VC finally relented and decided to meet the students. The VC denied that he brought in the Assam rifles into the campus.
The claim of the VC that he did not bring in the paramilitary was contested not only by students but by NU employees as well. An NU employee, speaking on condition of strict anonymity, disclosed that the Assam Rifles officer who came with Kannan was in the rank of an “Adjuntant”. A student leader said that the AR officer was ‘seen signaling the AR jawans to leave’. “We have our own security here in Lumami who can take care of any eventuality,” a student leader said.
While sentiments of the students were even more ruffled over the presence of the AR in the NU, the main demand of the PGSU (L) remains the same: two buses within two months (the VC contented at the meeting “after two months”) and an unconditional apology for bringing in the Assam Rifles into the campus.
The impasse continued till late in this evening. A PGSU (L) leader told The Morung Express that they have formed a committee comprising of the students and the VC “to amicably settle the issue”. However, the 17th foundation day of the highest learning institute in Nagaland which had Nagaland Chief Secretary as the guest of honour passed of with unrest, which Nagaland University, unfortunately, is not new to.
