Central Committee of Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)-New Democracy strongly condemns the brutal lathicharge on the students in Nawanshahr in Punjab on March 26, 2015. 13students including girl students were injured, 10 of them are in Govt. hospitals while the rest have been treated at private clinics. Students were protesting under the banner of Punjab Students Union (PSU) against failure of the college managements to reimburse the fees charged from Scheduled Castes (SC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) students against the Govt. order of not charging fees from students of these categories.
Managements of K.C. College of Engineering, Doaba College of Engineering and Reyat College of Engineering charged fees from the SC and OBC students. PSU led the protests against this illegal extortion from students by these managements. District Administration organized a meeting between the managements of these colleges and agitating students. In this meeting it was decided that fees collected would be reimbursed from February 17th. However, college managements violated this agreement and failed to reimburse the fees collected. Students had assembled to protest against flouting of this agreement when they were surrounded by the state police and brutally lathicharged injuring several of them.
This police action shows that ruling Akali Dal-BJP Govt. is hand in glove with the unscrupulous managements of colleges in defrauding the students and extorting money from them against explicit orders. This agitation led by PSU shows that students from SCs and OBCs face so many obstacles even to secure right to education despite pompous declarations by ruling parties.
CPI(ML)-New Democracy supports this students’ struggle and demands that strict action should be taken against the police officials responsible for brutality against students including girl students. This is all the more necessary as SDM has stated that civil administration had not ordered lathicharge and it was done by police itself. We also demand action against managements of the colleges for extorting money and going back on the undertaking. We further demand that fees illegally charged should be immediately reimbursed and state govt. should ensure that no such fees are charged in any college in the state.
Central Committee,
CPI(ML)-New Democracy
March 27, 2015