Bhubaneswar,
September 8 (odisha.in): Mahatma
Gandhi road in capital city Bhubaneswar turned into a
battle ground for sometime on Saturday afternoon, following a clash between the police and engineering students of various technical institutes affiliated to Biju
Patnaik University of Technology (BPUT) .
While some of the engineering students sustained injuries, the rest went on rampage damaging vehicles parked along the road connecting Rajmahal to Master canteen that falls within close proximity to the state assembly and state secretariat.
Police said, the students of all the technical institutes under BPUT were demonstrating since Friday, demanding scraping of year back system, which deprives a student’s promotion to higher class if he fails to clear more than five papers out of 12 in a year while in other universities, the students are promoted under such circumstances and have to clear all the back papers before the final degree examinations.
“Friday’s demonstration was peaceful in which over six thousand students had participated. Though a lesser number of students participated in today’s demonstration the police had to use force to disperse the students,” a senior police official told odisha.in.
“Around three hundred students rushed to the station square and nearby areas located within a radius of about one kilometer from the state secretariat and the state assembly and ransacked the public properties. They also damaged a number of vehicles parked on the road and ransacked some shops and damaged the glass panes of a number of business establishments,” he added.
Locals alleged that though the students carried on such activities for over half an hour, and caused all the damages near the Kharavelanagar police station and a large contingent of police were present near the state assembly and the state secretariat, they did not took any step to prevent the students from committing such act.
Talking to the media Bhubaneswar Range DIG Yogendra Bahadur Khurania however said that the unfortunate incident took place because of communication gap between the students and the principals of the technical institutions.
“We have detained over 70 students in this connection. Thorough investigation is on,” he added.
The students on the other hand told odisha.in that the
damage to public property and private vehicles and properties were handiworks of anti-socials and miscreants and no students were involved in such act.
Odisha.in