BHOPAL: Short on attendance, two girl students of Makhanlal Chaturvedi National University of Journalism and Communication (MCU) sat on a dharna, forcing university administration to take back their decision of not allowing them to write exams.
Manu Sharma and Shreya Pandey student of Mass Communication, final year, sat on a dharna at university gate on Tuesday evening. They were debarred from appearing in exams as their attendance was zero. Their communication with university didn’t provide any result.
However, on Wednesday some former students came in support of her. Rector Shrikant Singh met the girl students but explained to them about the rules and said that their admission was cancelled as their attendance was zero throughout the session and they didn’t apply for readmission either- like other three students.
However, Wednesday morning NSUI members too met her and tried to diffuse the situation. In the meanwhile, Bhopal MP Pragya Thakur came to meet them and expressed her support amidst sloganeering.
Later, university admission was forced to take back the decision and allowed them to appear in examinations in next semester.
Both the students, Manu and Shreya had not attended the classes even in the first year. There were five students in this category and university administration had cancelled their admissions. Later, three of these students, after warning, paid penalty of Rs 500 and were given readmission but Manu and Shreya didn’t pay the penalty.
Then, they had filed an affidavit pledging to abide by university rules. They declared that they will provide attendance of at least 75% failing which their admission could be cancelled and they could not appear in examination.
Manu and Shreya did not even fill the examination form, said university administration and approached university on December 24 pleading to be allowed to appear in exams.
Questions are also being raised on medical certificate produced by these students as they were regularly seen attending various programmes outside the university.
After hectic parleys of meetings and pressure for various quarters, university administration allowed them to appear in examination in the next semester in the month of May-June, on humanitarian grounds.
Pragya Thakur greeted with ‘Terrorist go back’ slogans: Bhopal MP Pragya Thakur, criticized for her absence, when controversy related to social media stand of Prof Dilip Mandal erupted at the MCU, visited the students on Wednesday. However, large number of Congress affiliated student wing, NSUI (National Students Union of India) members were present there and started shouting slogans like terrorist go back, Pragya Thakur go back, Mahatma Gandhi Amar Rahe etc.
After waiting there for a while Thakur had to retreat from the university gate.
Later, NSUI also claimed that university decision to allow two protesting students to appear in exams was taken because of their intervention.
