Mild force used as students wanted to disrupt ‘Punjab Vision: 2047’ event, says UT senior superintendent of police Kanwardeep Kaur. A student leader claims the protesters were not aware of the presence of the chief minister at law auditorium.
A group of protesting students, seeking elections to Panjab University’s (PU) senate, had a clash with cops during a march near the PU Student Centre here on Wednesday morning.
The police said the protesters were heading towards the law auditorium where the ‘Punjab Vision: 2047’ event, in presence of Punjab chief minister Bhagwant Mann, was being held whereas a student leader claimed the protesters weren’t even aware that the CM was present there. An FIR has been registered but no arrest has been made so far, the police said.
According to UT senior superintendent of police (SSP) Kanwardeep Kaur, leaders and followers of various student organisations, who were staging a sit-in in front of the vice chancellor’s (VC) office, started moving towards the venue of the CM’s event at about 11.45 am in a “pre-planned manner without intimating the PU authorities”. “Near the Student Centre, they began running towards the venue to disrupt the event,” she said.
The police said the protesters were urged to stop but they reached near the Student Centre’s parking area near the venue to disrupt the event. “Finding no other option to control them, the local police and the university security used mild force and made them sit in the parking area,” the SSP said.
The police further mentioned that the protesters were being led by Sandeep, Rimaljit Singh, Avtar, Navjot, Gurvinder, Sara and Monika of different student organisations.
The FIR has been registered under Sections 223 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant) and 132 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge of his duty) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita at the Sector 11 police station. It was not immediately known who all were named in the FIR.
Meanwhile, Archit Garg, vice president of the Panjab University Campus Students’ Council, claimed that the protesters were not aware about the presence of the CM in the law auditorium. He said the students had planned in advance to take out the march as a mark of symbolic protest from the VC office chowk to the VC’s house via Sector 14 market. “The route was blocked so we marched towards the AC Joshi Library. We went to the Student Centre from there. We had to take a turn from the road outside the law department’s parking but PCR vehicles suddenly stopped in front of us and cops began hitting students without issuing warning,” he claimed. He also said that no female cop was present.
