Gheraoed for 6 days, Presi dean leaves campus as students

Presidency University Dean of Students Arun Maity left the campus on early Wednesday morning

after being gheraoed by a section of students for over six consecutive days.

A varsity official said Maity, who was gheraoed since 3.30 pm on February 13, left the campus around 3 am on

Wednesday while the 30 agitating students were sleeping on the corridor.

He boarded his car parked in the portico and left, the official said.

Doctors inspected Maity and declared him fit but he is stressed due to the gherao, he said.

The dean did not take calls despite repeated attempts. The agitating students said they will continue the

sit-in outside the dean's office till they get a concrete assurance that the issues will be addressed on an urgent

basis. Students had gheraoed him demanding immediate handing

over of the three under-renovation wards of Hindu Hostel and proper sanitation facilities for girls' hostel in Salt Lake,

one of the agitating students, Debnil Paul said. The dean of students was only prevented from leaving

the campus during the period but he was not harassed and was free to go outside the chamber whenever he wanted, he said.

"We had urged him to stay with us and understand our situation at hostel," Paul said.

Another agitating student, Subho Biswas, said, "Dean sir had refused to acknowledge our problems and always

maintained that only the vice chancellor is the competent authority to give concrete assurances on the issues, which

made us think he is not serious in solving them." The students had on February 3 and 4 gheraoed Lohia

due to which she fell ill and was hospitalised. The VC, who was later discharged from hospital, has

not come to the campus since then. The superintendent and assistant superintendent of the

two hostels had offered to step down citing inability to work in the wake of protests but their resignations have not been

accepted yet, a Presidency official said.