Delhi University students gherao VC office demanding campus reopening

Students of 53 DU departments across colleges observe complete boycott of online classes

Over 400 students gathered at the call of the Students Federation of India (SFI) to gherao the University of Delhi Vice-Chancellors office today. The demand was to re-open DU university following the revised DDMA guidelines.

Delhi Disaster Management Authority last week allowed for the reopening of colleges and university campuses for offline academic activity. While Jawaharlal Nehru University and GGSIPU have issued circulars regarding the reopening of campuses, Delhi University is yet to take a call.

The students hung an 'Out of Service' placard over the gate of the DU VC office compound. As per the SFI, other student and teacher organisations have also extended support to the protest. Delhi University Students Union (DUSU) has also called upon the student community to join Sit in Dharna outside the DU AC meeting venue and boycott all online classes on February 9.

"The frustration of students is quite evident. You can see it in their faces, hear it in their voices. VC must address the situation in the next two days or else we would have to break the locks on our classrooms ourselves," said Ankit Birpali, SFI Hindu College Secretary.

In support of the protesting students, over 53 departments across the university observed a complete boycott of online classes. As per SFI, the strike for particularly successful in Hindu, Miranda House, LSR, Zakir Hussain, and Sri Aurobindo College.

"Many of us are not in Delhi right now so we couldn't join the protest called by SFI. But we decided that we must take action to send a message that students, in general, support the demand of re-opening the campus. Hence, we boycotted online classes today," said Arushi Sharma, a student of Miranda House.

SFI has announced the commencement of 'Sadak pe Kaksha', i.e., 'Classroom on the street' from Feb 9 until the university reopens. “Classrooms on the street is a message to the administration that both teachers and students want to begin offline classes. If they have any respect left for us, they should open the classrooms immediately,” said Abhishek, Co-convenor of SFI DU.

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