Students staged protests at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) by starting offline classes by themselves in front of the Maulana Azad Library as a means of protest to demand proper resuming of offline classes, library, Wi-Fi and mess services at the campus.
On 20th September, several students from different disciplines gathered outside the varsity’s central library and classes were taught by senior batch students.
A letter was sent by students to the university administration demanding the reopening of the university and the library at the earliest.
Imran Jalali, a research student at the varsity, who is also conducting these classes said, “it is getting difficult for us to study without resources. They should at least open the library so that we can avail books and other facilities. And this can be done by adopting basic social distancing guidelines recommended due to pandemic”.
He added, “until now we have communicated our concerns regarding this to the administration in many ways, but no concrete action has been taken by them so far”.
“The pandemic has already affected our lives on many fronts, we cannot allow ourselves to fail academically. So if the university administration fails to accept our demands, we will stage a democratic protest and will continue our offline classes in our capacity outside the library.”
The letter was received by the deputy proctor of the university Syed Nawaz Ali Zaidi.
The administration has cited Covid-19 as a reason for not resuming physical classes.
Proctor, Prof. Mohd. Wasim Ali said, “We are bound by the guidelines issued by the central government for Covid-19, otherwise we are concerned for academics too. We have got the letter, but we will try to make students understand that opening the institution is not possible given the conditions prevailing in the view of the pandemic. Once everything is in control, we can do that.”
However, the letter will be sent for further consideration to the Vice-Chancellor of the University and action will be taken accordingly.
