BHU violence: VC in denial mode, says everything is normal on campus

On a day that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah have also expressed their concern over the ongoing situation in Banaras Hindu University (BHU), the Vice Chancellor denied, saying that everything is "normal" on campus and whatever has come to public domain is a propaganda by "outsiders".

Protests sparked in BHU after a female student was molested on the campus on Thursday evening.

Speaking to DNA over the phone, BHU VC GC Tripathi said, "When I became the VC of this university in 2014 there was a much bigger agitation going on here, more than 100 boys were admitted to hospital at that time. Things happen on campus, you cannot stop these things. This time, the matter has been taken out of context because of outsiders. Outsiders, including political parties, have created a negative situation to destroy peace on campus."

On being questioned about student's safety concerns and CCTV cameras, he added, "Ours is the only university that is completely covered by CCTV cameras. We got them installed long ago. In fact, when cameras were being installed the same girls who are protesting today came to us and said that cameras will disturb our privacy. There are 65 points already covered in the campus, which have CCTV cameras installed, there is no question of lack of security."

In a charter of demands that the students had given to BHU administration, they had also mentioned that women security guards should be deployed on the campus, to which the VC said, "As a policy, we can only have ex-military men as security guards on the campus. However, we have initiated the process of getting women guards."

VC's stand

BHU VC GC Tripathi denied that any girls were lathicharged. "There was no police action on girls, it was only the outsiders engaged in violence who were attacked by police," he said.