Delhi University teachers assaulted on campus

NEW DELHI - The Delhi University Teachers’ Association (DUTA) Sunday said its members were physically assaulted while trying to meet Vice Chancellor (VC) Deepak Pental in the south campus here.

“Teachers were physically assaulted by university security personnel and police on the campus,” DUTA President Aditya Narayan Misra told IANS.

“The VC is doing illegal things, from cobalt (disposal leading to radiation leak mishap) to semester system (introduction)… Our members are staging a sit-in and we wanted the VC to meet us. We want a discussion on the feasibility of the semester system,” he said.

Giving details of the incident, DUTA member Sanjay Kumar said the VC remained a mute spectator to the assault on teachers as they tried to meet him.

“The VC was not coming to his office in north campus where our members are staging a sit-in. We came here (south campus) to meet him but the security personnel did not allow us to go inside. We were assaulted in front of the VC for almost half an hour but he said nothing,” Kumar said.

He added that the VC finally assured that he will meet the agitating teachers Sunday. “The VC has assured he will meet the teachers today (Sunday),” Kumar added.

Nineteen elected members of the university’s academic council are staging a sit-in in the academic council hall at the VC’s office in the north campus since the past four days.

In a special meeting Thursday, the council approved the courses to be implemented from the 2010-2011 session. Stating that the decision was imposed upon them, the members refused to leave the hall.

The council members said that the contents of the syllabi circulated among the members were quite different from the syllabi approved by the standing committee of the council Tuesday.

“The syllabi approved in the meeting have not been designed by the departments. The Delhi University Act clearly states that only departments can frame syllabi for their courses. This is a clear violation of the act,” said Kumar.

University teachers have been demanding that the semester system should not be implemented without discussions and consensus.

The vice chancellor had earlier acknowledged that there were differences within the university over the implementation of the semester system, but went ahead with the procedure for its introduction in some courses.