Protest reaches Secretariat gates
Thiruvananthapuram: A protest march organised by the Students’ Federation of India (SFI) in the capital on Thursday escalated into a confrontation with police, as demonstrators opposed the suspension of students at Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit in Kalady and a recent change in rules governing autonomous colleges.
The march was led by SFI state secretary P S Sanjeev and moved towards the Secretariat gate near the office of the Higher Education Minister. Police used water cannons on four occasions to disperse the protesters, but around 100 activists remained at the spot, officials said. The action brought a student-related dispute from a campus in Ernakulam district into the heart of the State administration, where public demonstrations can affect security arrangements and movement around the Secretariat.
According to the police, the protesters later cut the ropes holding the barricades in place and tried to advance towards the gate. Personnel positioned at the entrance prevented them from entering the Secretariat premises. Some activists then climbed on top of a water cannon vehicle, where they displayed a banner naming Minister Roji M John and addressed the gathering. Another banner was put up on the wall of the Secretariat compound.
Police said teams stationed at different gates were unable to contain every part of the march, allowing activists to remove barricades at some points. A case is expected to be registered over alleged damage to the barricades and the act of climbing onto the water cannon vehicle. The developments underline the difficult balance between allowing demonstrations on policy matters and maintaining security at one of the city’s most sensitive administrative locations.
Dispute over suspensions and examinations
The immediate campus issue relates to 16 SFI-affiliated students of Sree Sankaracharya University of Sanskrit who were suspended in August following protests directed at the vice-chancellor and the syndicate. Subsequently, 10 students were denied permission to sit for examinations, adding an academic consequence to the disciplinary action and intensifying the student organisation’s campaign.
| Issue | Details |
|---|---|
| Students suspended | 16 |
| Students denied examination permission | 10 |
| Water-cannon use | Four times |
| Protesters who remained, according to officials | About 100 |
The SFI’s demands also cover a Higher Education Department decision to remove the requirement for prior government approval when autonomous colleges introduce new self-financing courses or raise the intake in existing programmes. Left parties have criticised the move, arguing that it could enable colleges to expand such courses and seats without the earlier approval process. For students and families, the issue has implications for the availability, cost and oversight of higher-education programmes, although the protest itself centred on the government’s policy decision and the university disciplinary measures.
Political and administrative implications
With the Secretariat serving as the focal point of the agitation, Thursday’s events are likely to keep both campus discipline and autonomous-college regulation in the public debate. The police response, the alleged damage to barricades and the registration of a case may now become additional points of contention alongside the original demand for action on the suspensions and examination restrictions. The immediate facts remain that protesters were prevented from entering the Secretariat, police deployed water cannons, and the demonstration ended with banners placed on government property and a vehicle used for crowd control.
