JNU students take out march to education ministry, stopped by police outside campus

NEW DELHI: Members of the JNU students' union on Friday took out a march to the Ministry of Education to press for their demands, including increase in scholarship amounts, but were stopped by police just outside their campus. There is a heavy deployment of police personnel with multiple layers of barricading, trying to stop the students from stepping out of the campus. However, the students marched for half a kilometre outside the campus and were stopped by the police. A clash broke out as students tried to break the barricades.

A police official earlier said that no permission was given to the students to march outside the campus. "They will be stopped, if they come out of the university," the official had said earlier. The police have kept buses on stand-by to detain those trying to proceed further. The call for the march is part of an ongoing hunger strike on campus which entered the 13th day. It started on August 11.

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Student strike for demands

A section of students also participated in a call for a complete university strike by boycotting the classes. They demand an increase in scholarship amounts, a caste census on campus, the lifting of the ban on campus protests, and the withdrawal of proctorial inquiries initiated against students for participating in the protests.

JNUSU's BAPSA affiliated General Secretary Priyanshi Arya has disassociated herself from the protest stating that the Union should first hold a protest in the prohibited area of 100 meter radius of Vice-Chancellor's office. RSS affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) said it will not be a part of the march or the complete university strike called by the Union.