Students agitate outside VC's chamber in BU

The Vice-Chancellor of Burdwan University was today gheraoed by agitating students of Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, protesting against alleged irregularity in the MBA tourism course admission list.
Amid high drama over a threat to commit suicide by a candidate of MBA tourism course from second floor if his name was not included in the list put up earlier in the day, some of the union members sat outside the chamber of Vice-Chancellor Professor Smritikumar Sarkar.
Asking the students to come for talks, Sarkar told reporters over phone that while the contentious list was provisional and the final one was not yet ready, he had already formed a committee with varsity officials to scrutinise the process of admission, find any lacunae while preparing the list and submit the final report on March 16.

"The students were intimated about this committee, but still they went ahead with the agitation today, joined by some outsiders. They also damaged part of the heritage building which should not have occured," he said.
BU TMCP unit Assistant General Secretary Md Saddam Hussein vowed to continue the agitation blaming the VC for the impasse.
"A bigger tragedy could have occured if the MBA tourism course candidate SK Sukhchand had jumped from the second floor which was prevented by other union members who brought him down," he said.

Claiming Sukhchand, who had passed from Raj College under BU, met the eligibility criteria for admission to the MBA course, the TMCP leader said the VC wanted to push his own candidates in the list unfairly which the union will resist.

A district police officer said on getting news about the agitation, a force was kept ready, but there was no request from the university authorities to intervene.
"We are hopeful of resolving the issue by discussions," the VC said.