On the eve of Sir Syed Day, when the Aligarh Muslim University was celebrating the 199th birth anniversary of its founder, the residents of IG Hall, completed their second day of strike in demand of the Provost’s resignation. The protest started when the provost of IG Hall allegedly pushed a student and denied the female residents permission to attend a musical event being organised in the varsity. Girls are also complaining of mental harassment and character assassination by the Provost, Dr Farukh Arjmand.

“We have been harassed on a daily basis. On even the slightest of faults, we are threatened with expulsion. Our curfew time is 6:30 pm and if we’re late by even a minute, we are cursed and abused by our Provost”, says Afsha (name changed), a 22-year-old student from Faculty of Life Sciences.

The Proctor came along with his team to negotiate with the protesting students. Adeeba (name changed), a student of English Literature remarked, “The administration is trying to deviate from the topic to confuse people. They are saying that we are protesting for our outing time but that is not true. We are protesting against our harassment. Of course we have a problem with the time schedule but right now all we want is the resignation of this Provost.”

While another student of English said, “The Provost uses words like ‘Meri pahunch bahut upar tak hai’ to terrorize the students and yesterday she broke all the limits saying that she should have poisoned our food.” While the Provost denied all the allegations and refused to talk, another girl claimed that the Provost uses words like ‘prostitute’ for the students.

However, the Vice Chancellor Lt Gen Shah, visited the protest site yesterday to ask the girls to dissolve the protest and celebrate Sir Syed Day as the soul of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan would be pained by the protest. He didn’t even enter into a dialogue with the students and went back saying “I don’t have time.”     

Moreover, notices have been sent to the parents of three protestors while others have been called and told that their daughters indulge in ‘awaaragardi’ in Aligarh.

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