Hunger Strike at National Institute of Technology

This blog post is not just a story . This is a true incident happening in one of the premier institutes of India. I being a student of NIT know the happiness and dreams of a student when he/she gets admission to one of the NITs in India. Student gets excellent facilities and brilliant faculties and lot more that better education.

One of my friend Zango was also happy to take admission in NIT after he has scored a nice rank in entrance exam 3 years back. He had some choices for selecting but he gave me a wonderful reason to chose NIT Srinagar among those options. I would like share it here. Zango selected NIT Srinagar with a feeling of patriotism and brotherhood for kashmiris, he had a feeling that people are moving out of kashmir with the present issues which is like moving away from the problem. Admiring the beauty of Kashmir he wanted to live in there, He has a feeling if people will stay there, do some constructive work with fighting the terrorism. J&K will again be one of the progressive states.

Unfortunately situation at Kashmir is still same. Two days back some video clips, tweets and emails on internet showcasing hunger strike at NIT srinagar .. It was only after i called up Zanjo, i got the real situation over there. After talking to him i felt very sad. They have to do a hunger strike for sitting in placement interviews. What kind of NIT is this ? Why HRD is not removing administration if they are not able to maintain the NIT standards? 

Unrest in Kashmir Valley has caused serious problems for final year placements. Protests happening in Srinagar has targeted NIT students many times, but institutes's administration is sleeping taking unrest as holiday. No steps being taken to smooth functioning of academics . After students contacted HRD ministry, Director was questioned and all anger came back to students. Earlier Students were assured to have a placement week at Delhi, starting 20th Sep where companies will be doing campus recruitment for students, but at present situation director's response is rejection with words 'It was never authorised or approved  on papers'. Its third day of hunger strike but no action has been taken. In return administration is trying to break up student's unity using ragging punishments. They tried to contact Media but security is not allowing media people inside the campus boundaries. Most of the media is busy with all party meet happening at Kashmir there is no one to help the students situation. Here is youtube channel of NIT students showing some videos of the real situation at NIT Srinagar. Some action is seriously required before students following gandhigiri turn into angry protesters. Please do comment your views to help Zanjo .. Zango and some of his friends are presently hospitalized and are on glucose.

Adding EMAIL UPDATE sent from NIT Students 

Respected sir/madam,

This is to bring to your notice that our institute has been intermittently functioning since 11 JUNE 2010 because of the unrest in the 'Kashmir valley '. This has affected our academics, placements of the final year. No steps have been taken by the college administration to ensure smooth functioning of our academics and placements.

We have been trying to communicate with the director for the past three days but he was unavailable to address our problems. After having called by the HRD ministry, when pressure began to build on the director, the best response we could get was that he came to college after two days of persistent hunger strike and still did not communicate with us directly. Instead he briefed us through the chief warden that the matter of our studies and degree is out of “syllabus” and he is not responsible for any of it.

We are now into the fourth day of our hunger strike and neither a single demand of ours have been met, nor is there any hope of his acting for the same. Regarding the placement of the final year students, we were told by the director that a placement week would be arranged in Delhi from 20^th September 2010 which would continue for about a week, but later he forthrightly rejected it saying that the talk was all verbal and was not authorised or approved, thus it could not be held.

Yesterday (16-09-2010) college authorities have tried to communicate through police personnel, which has not given any fruitful solution of our demands and they were threatening indirectly. As the HUNGER STRIKE continued in biting cold, many students are been hospitalised and are running on Glucose with mere medical facilities in college.

Today (17-09-2010) it has been reported to higher authorities by the college management that ‘college has been running smoothly without any hitch’, but nothing of that sort has been happening.

In the afternoon, Dean Student’s affair, Chief warden and other authorities have met students and instead of sorting out the problem, they are threatening the students that ‘the degree of students shall be withheld forever and it won’t take much time for them to rusticate everyone and send them home forcefully, which has been also done in the past. And they have no concern with us whatever we do, and they don’t even care if they shut the college forever and jeopardize our career’. 

After that in the evening when media (CNN-IBN) came for the covering of the ongoing hunger strike and to communicate with the students, they were not allowed to enter the college gate, but somehow students managed to talk to them. During their visit many students were even not allowed to get out of their hostels and were locked in. Authorities and some faculty members were restraining and threatening the students for attending media persons.

Meanwhile, including those students who were hospitalised earlier in the college medical unit many other students who fell ill were sent to Rainawari government hospital for further medication.

The Dean Student Affairs’ (Amberdar), has threatened the students who are on hunger strike to call off their strike or else police will come into action to dissolve the situation.

In spite of all these catastrophic events, still director is not paying any attention towards students’ demands (which are logical).

Thus this is our humble submission that you in the best of your capacity carry our motive further for an appropriate redressal.

Here are the demands from the college administration by the students,

WHY HUNGER STRIKE???

Specific Demands

1.         As academic is of utmost importance to the institute, our classes should commence regularly from 15^th September 2010 at 9:30 am.

2.       In case college is unable to arrange the classes during day hours, arrange night classes from 15^th September 2010 as it is open outside from 7 pm to 7am.

3.       Placement week must be arranged from 20^th September to 27^th September 2010 as the Director of the institute ensured us about the same in the meeting held on 1^st September 2010 in the presence of Prof. A.H. Mir.

4.       As per the statutes results must have been declared within 7 days after the completion of examination but it is not even compiled yet. So result must be declared latest by 17^th September.

5.    We need written assurance that our degree will be completed by July, 2011.

6.   Ensure security in the campus for all the students.

7.      If college administration is unable to meet any of our demands, give the same in written to us so that we can approach higher authorities through proper channel.

Note: The day scholar students are willing to get accommodated in the college for the smooth run of the classes and they also are in the favour of Placement week which was cancelled by college authorities.

Name of the students who are hospitalised,

1.       Shashikant Shekhar,

2.        Rajesh kumar Rajwar,

3.        Puneet Tiwari,

4.        Subham,

5.       Amarnath,

6.       Yagyan Prasad Sahoo,

7.        Saroj Yadav.

Here is the link to our HUNGER STRIKE videos on youtube :

http://www.youtube.com/user/NITsrinagar10

Threatening video link:

College meeting with police:

Interview of a student:

Glimpses of strike:

Thanking you in anticipation of adequate action from your side.

NIT Srinagar students