HYDERABAD: Executive committee members shift venue at the last minute; Students protest, nevertheless, demanding that erring officials be brought to book The ongoing tussle between students and the management of the English and Foreign Languages University (EFLU) came out into the open once again on Thursday during the latter’s executive council meeting.The meeting, originally planned to be held at the Educational Multimedia Research Center on EFLU campus, was shifted to Hotel Minerva Grand at Secunderabad in the afternoon, perhaps fearing protests.However, the students, who soon got wind of the change of plans, rushed to the hotel in a bus to stage a protest. But they were stopped in their tracks by the police near the Patny circle.“We were locked inside the bus near Patny circle and the police blocked our way.Later on, they man-handled us when we tried to protest,” alleged Mohan Dharavath of DABMSA.The tenacious students, though, hung on and after nearly two hours, forced the executive council members to come out and accept their memorandum.The executive council is understood to have discussed among other things, the reported findings of a CBI inquiry into the irregularities in the university and the proposed search committee for zeroing in on a regular vice-chancellor.However, a professor on condition of anonymity, said, “these issues are old. The council might have discussed the search committee for selection of a regular vice-chancellor.Until we have a regular VC, not a single issue will be resolved.” An EC member, Prof Meenakshi Reddy, when asked about the meeting refused to comment and termed it “confidential”.The student organizations, on the other hand, were vociferous in their demand that the guilty should be brought to book. “Whoever is found guilty by the CBI’s probe report should be dealt with sternly.We demand removal of non-academicians and non-eligible candidates from the executive council and increased focus on a concrete road map for the development of EFLU as an academic institution,” said Subhash, a student leader.Student organizations also feared that there were certain factions in the university who were trying to protect the guilty. “The EC itself is trying to protect the guilty. If a regular VC is the solution to all problems, why is that not happening?” asked Sitaramulu, another student.The executive council had met in Sept last year and even then, the venue was shifted to the Mariott Hotel. The students had protested outside the hotel and were taken into preventive custody.
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