DU women students call for protest against ‘arbitrary’ hostel rules

NEW DELHI: Women students of five Delhi University hostels have called for a protest against “discriminatory” hostel rules from Thursday, February 27.

Students said that they will be protesting indefinitely in front of the Delhi University Girls Hostel Complex from 6 PM today.

According to students, the women’s hostels have a curfew timing of 7.30 PM which limits their movements. “It is a loss of opportunity. We can’t even access the 24/7 library or opt to go for tuitions because of the curfew,” said Amisha Nanda, a first-year student at the Faculty of Law.

Apart from curfew, there are also “arbitrary” rules in place at the hostels. For instance, the undergraduate hostels have a rule where if a meal is skipped they have to pay a fine of Rs 100 which hikes to Rs 500 the next day. Students say that they have repeatedly submitted a charter of demands to the authorities regarding these rules but have only got vague assurances in return.

“The administration told us that if rules are to be changed then it would be changed for all hostels. So we had to bring all the hostels together,” said Nanda. Students from Undergraduate Hostels for Girls, Ambedkar Ganguly Students House for Women, North Eastern Students House for Women, Rajeev Gandhi Hostel for Girls and University Hostel for Women will be part of the protests.

One of their major demands is the implementation of the University Grants Commission’s Saksham report. Released in 2014, the Saksham report recommended measures for women safety and gender sensitization in campuses. One such recommendation was that the concern for the safety of women students should not lead to discriminatory rules.

On February 23, students of Ambedkar Ganguly Students House for Women had broken the hostel lock in a protest against the curfew timings.

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