Tiger on prowl on MANIT campus: UG students start vacating hostels, PG pupils protest for not given leave

Bhopal(Madhya Pradesh): A day after Maulana Azad National Institute of Technology (MANIT) administration reschedule the academic calendar of Under Graduate students and announced Mid Semester Break for them in the light of tiger movement on the premises of the institution, several Post Graduate Students and PhD students staged a protest on the campus and demanded that akin to UG students, leave should be granted to them as well.

The PG students asked, “Will the tiger attack the students on seeing their course they are pursuing? The threat from the tiger was real and to all on the campus as it has not been caught till now.”

The demonstrating students talked about the possibility of tiger attack and were of the opinion that if a tiger attacked, it would not discriminate between UG and PG students.

They demanded that their classes should be also called off and they should be allowed to attend the online classes. However MANIT administration said that if they don’t attend the classes then they will be devoid of stipend.

One of the students spoke on condition of anonymity that when MANIT administration put condition, then demonstrating students were left with no option rather to accept the directive.

Meanwhile, while most undergraduate students vacated the hostels, some students living a longer distance from Bhopal sought more time to vacate the hostels as they couldn’t arrange train tickets given the short notice.

MANIT Bhopal instructed the UG (undergraduate) students on Monday to vacate hostels at the earliest, maximum by 6 PM on Tuesday given threat from the tiger.

A BTech second-year student said, “The situation here is very sudden and unfortunate. But offline classes should have been a better option than rescheduling the academic calendar as this will impact our competitive exams like GMAT etc. But what can we do, as this is for our safety.”

A Btech student said, being a girl, my family doesn’t like the idea of me travelling alone. I am from the North- East. It is far, and it is hard for me to travel alone, and now suddenly, I can’t do anything about it. The tickets are costly and hard to find, and I am still in the hostel. Somehow, I managed to book a flight ticket for tomorrow (Wednesday).”

Another Civil Engineering student said I am from Bihar; I booked tickets for the Diwali break three months ago, and till now my ticket is waitlisted. It is tough for us to find tickets.