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EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Feb 18
The college students’ protest demanding 'open choice' for the upcoming examinations turned violent today as hundreds of protesting students after boycotting their classes resorted to heavy stone pelting on police personnel, who prevented them from taking out a protest march here today.
''The students this morning, on being stopped from demonstrating outside their respective colleges, pelted stones on the police personnel injuring four people and damaging a government vehicle,'' a senior police official said.
The protest in the shape of a rally led by Sahil Choudhary (President, GGM Science College) and Abhay Sharma (Vice President, GGM Science College) took off from GGM Science College.
After a while, the agitating students of SPMR College of Commerce led by Partap Singh Jamwal (State Vice President, JJSF) joined their GGM Science College counterparts and started to march towards Jammu University (JU).
But just when the students were about to leave the GGM Science College premises, they were forcibly stopped by the police contingent deployed there which led to ding-dong battles between the protesters and cops.
When the agitating students did not relent and tried to break the police cordon, the cops cane charged the protesters to disperse them.
But the police action aggravated the situation further as the students got infuriated after seeing some of their colleagues getting injured.
Students started pelting stones on cops which was retaliated by the police as they also pelted stones towards the direction of students.
The heavy stone pelting from both the sides went on for some time thus creating a panic on Canal Road for quite some time.
The news of cane charge by police on peacefully agitating students spread like a wild fire following which students in different city colleges started protest in their respective institutions.
In Government College for Women, Parade, the students led by Vinakshi Sharma (President, GCW Parade) gathered in college ground.
College authorities, however, tried to stop them but students forcefully came out of the college premises and blocked ever busy Kachi Chawni road for about two and a half hour.
Raising slogans against Jammu University authorities, the students of other colleges, also held a protest demonstration and demanded 'open choice' as it offers them better flexibility while writing papers out of a fixed number of questions.
Reacting towards the cane charge by police on student community, the students of Government MAM College in the shape of rally came out on road.
Led by Varinder Singh (President, MAM College), the students marched towards GGM Science college but police stopped them at Bikram Chowk.
The agitated students forcibly crossed the barrier of police and manged to reach GGM Science College where they raised slogans against JU authorities and police.
''Due to the two-month long agitation our routine studies were affected and now the authorities should give some relaxation during examinations in different streams,” one of the student leaders demanded.
The students, however, said the 'open choice' was their ''genuine demand'' and it should be accepted.
It needs to be mention that last year, students faced a similar problem due to the Amarnath land agitation and the university authorities granted permission for “open choice”, we are optimistic that this time too they would show similar attitude, said Vikas Mahajan of GGM Science College
Rohit Wali, Part-III student of the same college, said the efficiency of the college administration could be gauged from the fact that they had completed only 50 per cent of the syllabus so far, whereas exams would be conducted after one month.
Students also alleged due to mid-session transfer of lecturers, the syllabus remained incomplete.
Expressing similar views, Jyoti Choudhary, a part-I student, said, “Not only the syllabus, but also practical are yet to be completed.” “They have not taken the second internal assessment test and have not conducted internal-practicals so far,” he added.
As per reports protest was started from GGM Science College. The protest was leaded by Sahil Choudhary (President, GGM Science College) and Abhay Sharma (Vice President, GGM Science College).
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