BHU campus crackdown: Three additional city magistrates, two cops transferred

The Uttar Pradesh government on Monday transferred three additional city magistrates and two policemen after several Banaras Hindu University students were injured in a cane-charge during a protest against alleged molestation of a hosteller.

The Saturday night crackdown that left several students, most of them women, injured, was widely condemned, with Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav hitting out at the Yogi Adityanath government.

Station officer of Lanka Rajiv Singh was sent to police lines while deputy superintendent of police Nimesh Katiyar, the Bhelupur circle officer, was moved to the accounts section, sources said.

Sanjiv Mishra will take over from Singh while Ayodhya Prasad comes in for Katiyar, police sources said.

A release from Varanasi’s district information office said three additional city magistrates, Manoj Kumar Singh, Sushil Kumar Gaund and Jagdamma Prasad Singh, too, have been removed.

Meanwhile, district magistrate Yogeshwar Ram Mishra on Monday asked BHU registrar Neeraj Tripathi to address the problems of girl students at the university.

In a letter to the registrar, Mishra suggested installation of CCTV cameras at all the entry and exit points of the University and deployment of security personnel outside the girls’ hostels.

Mishra asked the registrar to form a committee in the light of the guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in the Vishakha case to deal with harassment of women.

“The committee should submit its report to the vice-chancellor from time to time and the BHU administration should take action accordingly,” the letter said.

The violence broke out after police forcibly removed students from outside the vice-chancellor’s residence and a campus gate. They were protesting against the failure of the authorities to act against motorcycle-borne men who allegedly molested a university student.

The students alleged that the campus security and police hit them with lathis, pulled many of them by their hair and dragged them out.

The fracas forced BHU to bring forward its Dussehra break by three days to September 25. Several other Uttar Pradesh universities, too, advanced holidays to prevent the unrest from spreading.