Hitting out against the government for keeping them in the dark about the arrest of their children from the Hyderabad Central University (HCU), parents of detained students said it was the duty of the authorities and the police to inform them about the development since they ‘were not (living) in Syria or Pakistan.’
Around 26 students were arrested from the HCU campus after they allegedly held the varsity’s vice chancellor hostage and caused property damage. Appa Rao Podile returned to work this week into a tense campus where protests have been raging ever since 26-year-old dalit scholar Rohith Vemula ended his life in a hostel room in January after he was rusticated.
"We are not in Syria or Pakistan. It is the duty of the police to inform parents about those who've been arrested. No government, university authorities or faculty members got in touch with us," a parent from Kerala told NDTV.
Another parent from the southern state, a 42-year-old mother said she came to know about the arrest of her son only through social media since nobody from the university or the police had officially informed her.
Adding that she is yet to get any details of her son’s whereabouts from the police, the student’s mother, a government employee who wished not be named, broke down.
"Shouldn't we be informed officially? Should we get to know things two days later through social media? We kept trying his phone, but couldn't touch base with him or his friends." she told the news channel.
On Tuesday evening, her son called home, but hung up abruptly, and there has been no news from him since then, she said.
Meanwhile, the bail hearing of detained students and two professors has been postponed to Monday.
A team of students that constitute the Joint Action Committee alleged that the arrested students were beaten up by the police while some female students were sexually harassed as they were being dragged out of the vice chancellor’s office.
However, the police denied the allegations in a statement.
“The evicted students formed into a mob outside the compound wall and started stone pelting in which 4 police officers got injured...the police had to use mild force to disperse the students," it said.
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