The Siege of Edu: A Report from an Outsider

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Kumkum Garg hai hai!! Kumkum Garg hai hai!!” This is what I heard in the evening when I was sitting in the KMC Greens. A huge crowd of MIT students was heading towards the Edu Building and all of them looked as if they have serious issues with the management. Upon asking they explained the issue about the student’s death which was due to the less number of buses in the MIT campus. And the director had apparently insulted the memory of the deceased which enraged the students.

The crowd literary broke the barricade in the gates of the building and then the students sat down in front of the office shouting slogans and asking the officials to come out. Slowly people from the medical campus started gathering around. The library was shut down after an hour or so and that enraged many students as several colleges had their exams around the corner. And the crowd increased as many MIT students had joined the protest during this time.

30 nostalgic photos of manipal 1997 to 2001
Some actions of the protesters were uncalled for . . .

The officials came out after sometime and started to talk to the representatives. The officials started making several offers to the students but everyone kept shouting the same line: We want resignation! There was a banner out of nowhere which said the same lines. The Vice Chancellor kept his calm during the entire ruckus and kept talking to the students from time to time.

Later in the evening things started heating up. The riot control police was all around that place. Bottles were being pelted towards the building and the patience of the students was wearing out. The students got closer to the entrance and it was after that when the pushing and ear-deafening yelling began. But thanks to the officials they never ordered to evacuate us by force and after sometime around nine o clock the VC came out and announced the resignation of KumKum Garg very clearly. Everyone felt some sense of justice to the memory of the deceased student and within a matter of minutes the students evacuated the place.

This incident will always be remembered by the students and the officials and I personally hope that Manipal University will look upon the issues of the number of buses and traffic regulations inside the campus. When thousands of students gather up for a cause it is because they mean it.

3 Comments

  1. We are sorry for disrupting your exam preparations. 

    But someone was dead, and he deserved justice in light of the circumstances.Many of us aren’t proud of what some lumpen elements did to destroy property. 
    But they were asking for it with their ineptitude.
    A very well written article. 

  2. “When thousands of students gather up for a cause it is because they mean it.”  – That summed it all…!

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