AMU: Protesting students' block attempt to shift leader on hunger strike to hospital

ALIGARH: Tension prevailed at Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) here after protesting students prevented university authorities from shifting a student, who has been on a hunger strike for 15 days, to the hospital as his condition deteriorated, officials said on Wednesday.

The protesting students have been demanding elections to the students' union that have not been held for eight years. A team of security personnel reached the protest site with an ambulance on Tuesday night after reports that the condition of Yasser Fahad, a postgraduate student of Urdu, had worsened, the officials said.

However, a large number of protesting students gathered around Fahad and prevented the authorities from taking him to the hospital. The security personnel subsequently returned without being able to shift Fahad, they said.

Also read DU college students plan 5 years to bring International Conference of Physics Students to India

Urgent medical treatment for student

AMU Proctor Naved Khan said the move was aimed at providing the student urgent medical treatment. "This was not an attempt to break the hunger strike, as was mistakenly assumed, but just to provide him urgent medical support in view of the serious level of a number of health parameters," Khan told reporters. He said the university authorities had conveyed to the students that Fahad would be allowed to return to the protest site after doctors stabilised his condition.

A spokesperson for the protesting students said they were deeply concerned about Fahad's health and urged the university to announce the elections to the students' union. "If the university authorities share our concerns, then they should immediately announce the dates for the students' union elections," the spokesperson said, adding that the students have lost trust in the administration due to past experiences. The protests also spread to different women's hostels on Tuesday night, with students raising slogans demanding elections.

The AMU Teachers' Association (AMUTA) has also demanded that elections to various statutory bodies of the university be held. AMUTA Secretary Ashraf Mateen said most of these bodies had been functioning without elected teacher representatives for more than six years.