Leaders of various student organisations on Tuesday barged into a venue where Education Minister A. Suresh was to address a press conference, and raised slogans against the Government’s decision to merge aided educational institutions with government-run institutions.
Even as the Minister was addressing a press conference after releasing the results of the AP Post-Graduate Common Entrance Tests (AP PGCET-2021), leaders of the Telugu Nadu Students’ Federation (TNSF), the Progressive Democratic Students’ Union (PDSU) and the All India Students’ Federation (AISF) barged into the room and started raising slogans against the police lathi-charge on the students of Sri Sai Baba National (SSBN) Degree College in Anantapur on Monday and demanded that the Government drop its plan to merge aided institutions.
The Minister tried to make his point that there was no compulsion from the Government’s side to surrender the staff or the schools and that it was being carried out only if the managements were willing to do so. “Let the SSBN College management say that they are not willing for the merger, I will immediately drop the merger proposal,” he said, but his voice drowned in the din as the student leaders questioned him about the lathi-charge on the students and alleged that the police was treating students like goons. They said that there was a sense of insecurity among all sections towards the police behaviour.
As the police removed the protesters from the room, they squatted in the corridor and raised slogans for some time before they were bundled in a vehicle and taken away.
A girl student of SSBN College was injured when the police resorted to a lathi-charge to disperse a large gathering of students and student union leaders protesting against the reported option given by the college management to give up its “aided’ status.
