Students at NIT Silchar clash with police after suicide on campus
Guwahati: On Friday night, students at the National Institute of Technology at Silchar in Cachar district of Assam, clashed with the police during a massive student protest against NIT authorities. This protest took place after one of their students allegedly hung himself at the college hostel after he failed exams and couldn't clear his back papers, reports NDTV.
According to sources, the fellow student was from Arunachal Pradesh, was in the third semester of the electric engineering course, had requested the college authorities to allow him to register for the next semester, but it was reportedly turned down.
The students were upset over the new guidelines introduced by the college administration. Speaking to NDTV, one of the protesting students said they waited whole night for NIT Silchar Director to meet them, but he declined all their requests. The college has been introducing new guidelines for students everyday. The student added, “The students are not happy with the behaviour of the administration of NIT Silchar. Today, one of the students died by suicide due to depression.”
According to the students, they were protesting peacefully, and wanted to meet the Director of the institute, but were met with police batons instead
Another protesting student said, “Our student, our senior, died by suicide, and we were doing peaceful agitation but the authorities of NIT Silchar didn't even bother to come and talk to us. They unleashed police on us, police lathi-charged us."
According to the college administration, the student allegedly killed himself due to depression, they said, the student had problems since his first year itself and he might have been depressed as he couldn't clear backlogs.
The police said they had to take steps to de-escalate the situation as the students were not ready to negotiate, they also vandalised cars and ransacked the residence of the Dean. A case of unnatural death has been registered, and the police have recovered the dead body and sent it for post-mortem.
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Congress using hijab issue to pacify minority anger, alleges Karnataka LoP R Ashoka
Bengaluru: Leader of Opposition in the Assembly R. Ashoka has accused the Congress government of using the hijab issue to placate what he described as discontent among minority voters after the Davanagere by-election.
In a post on X on Wednesday, Ashoka alleged that the state government, instead of addressing issues such as price rise, corruption, farmers’ distress and law and order, was attempting to retain its minority vote base by reviving the hijab issue.
Referring to the 2022 dress code introduced by the BJP government, which prohibited hijab in schools and colleges, Ashoka said the Karnataka High Court had upheld the policy and emphasised the importance of discipline in educational institutions.
He questioned the Congress government’s move to revisit the issue and asked whether setting aside the court-backed policy to benefit one community could be described as secularism.
Ashoka further alleged that while the government was willing to permit hijab, it continued to prohibit saffron shawls.
He accused the government of dividing students on religious lines rather than treating schools and colleges as spaces of equality.
Drawing a comparison with Mamata Banerjee’s government in West Bengal, Ashoka claimed that excessive appeasement politics had harmed the state and warned that the Congress in Karnataka could face a similar political response.
He said voters in Karnataka would teach the Congress a lesson for what he termed “vote-bank politics” and for compromising constitutional and judicial principles.
