Responding to a bandh call given by students organisations, engineering colleges and other higher educational institutions remained closed on Monday in the wake of a a B.Tech student committing suicide following alleged harassment by the college management to clear fee arrears.
Members of the students’ unions went round the city and other places forcing closure of degree, post-graduation and professional colleges. They raised slogans demanding that the State government take responsibility for educating all students, including those pursuing education in the private sector, as promised during elections.
Later, they staged a demonstration in front of the private college, where K. Tejasree had been studying, demanding compensation to the family of the girl, who had reportedly felt humiliated when she was disallowed from boarding the college bus for not having cleared bus charges.
Instead of taking up the issue of fee reimbursement arrears with the State government, the college managements were pressuring students to pay fees, alleged Progressive Democratic Students Union(PDSU) State vice-president L.Rajasekar while leading the protest.
‘Act against erring colleges’
The Jagan Mohan Reddy government should fulfil its poll promise to provide free education to students from K.G. to P.G., added Andhra Pradesh Students Joint Action Committee president Rayapatti Jagadeesh. Some of the colleges collected more fees from students, he alleged.
The three-member committee constituted to probe the circumstances leading to the suicide of Tejasree, a second year B.Tech student, should be an impartial probe and fix responsibility for the incident. The committee should come out with a series of recommendations to prevent recurrence of such incidents in the future, said Students Federation of India District Secretary Ch.Vinod.
