ABVP students protested at Delhi University's North Campus over exam irregularities, leading to a scuffle with police. They demand grace marking or rescheduling of exams, threatening a hunger strike if their demands are not met by the administration.
ABVP Stages Protest, Clashes with Police
Akhil Bhartiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) students jostled with Delhi police on Friday, while students tried to get inside the Examination Block of the DU North Campus Arts Faculty during their protest against the Delhi University Administration.
Visuals from DU showed certain students trying to climb over the locked metal gates and shout slogans while police officials tried to get them away from the gates. ABVP students held a protest rally outside the North Campus Arts Faculty against the DU Admin over irregularities in examinations.
Protesters Demand Action, Threaten Hunger Strike
The ABVP-affiliated students are demanding transparency and accountability from the administration. "Our exam dean did not conduct exams based on the tentative timings told to us, because of which multiple students faced problems. On that note, ABVP has gone to the streets, today we will gherao their office if they don't listen to us," said one of the protesters, and ABVP member Kunal Chaudhary.
"We demand that they should do grace marking, or reschedule the exam. We will continue to protest, we will do a hunger strike if this doesn't happen" "Today, I have gathered today to address the irregularities in the examination, and they should be finished or they (the admin) should resign. I believe that they should fix their exams, or we will make our sloganeering permanent," said another ABVP member Riya Malik.
Widespread Exam Delays and Cancellations
The protest by ABVP comes a week after thousands of students faced delays in their semester examinations on December 13. Various papers had been cancelled too, across various disciplines. The delays caused disruptions to other non-exam taking students, as the exam halls were to be used for evening classes later on.
Students faced delays of more than 2 hours, with hundreds of papers originally scheduled for more than 1 lakh students. According to teachers, there has been a sharp increase in the number of examinations following the implementation of the National Education Policy (NEP), which allows Four Year Undergraduate Courses, which in turn increased the exam workload.
University Cites 'Logistical Issues'
Replying to the exam delays, DU in an official notice said, "This is to notify all concerned that approximately 800 papers were scheduled for the morning session today and due to some logistical issues, few papers could not be dispatched and the same could not be conducted at some examination centres."
The semester exams for DU students began on December 10. (ANI)
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