FILE photo: Jadavpur University students protesting against the police crackdown inside the campus in September 2014
Students of Jadavpur University in Kolkata have started a "fast unto death" to renew their demand for the resignation of Vice Chancellor Abhijit Chakraborty.
11 students went on a hunger strike late on Monday night outside Aurobindo Bhavan, the university's administrative building. More are expected to join.
Yesterday, representatives of all students' unions except from the Trinamool Congress walked out of a meeting called to discuss university elections the moment the vice chancellor arrived for it.
Elections are due at the university on January 21 and 28.
Students had been demanding the resignation of the vice chancellor ever since he called the police into the campus on the intervening night of September 16-17 to break up a students' protest. The police assaulted students who had allegedly refused to allow the Vice Chancellor to leave his office.
The incident led to a huge public outrage and demands for the Mr Chakraborty's removal. The Trinamool government's education minister Partha Chatterjee had stood firmly by the Vice Chancellor despite the students' protests snowballing into a massive movement which came to be called "
hok kolorob".
The movement got a fresh shot in the arm on December 24 when a student went on stage but refused to accept her best all-rounder medal from the Governor, who is also the university's chancellor, during a convocation ceremony.