Telangana Minister to visit IIIT Basara as students continue protest

Hyderabad, June 20: Telangana's Education Minister P. Sabitha Indra Reddy will visit the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge and Technologies (RGUKT) in Nirmal district where students continued their protest for the seventh day on Monday to press for their demands.

Braving rains, students of RGUKT, popularly known as IIIT Basara, continued the sit-in at the main gate of the building.

They are protesting over poor quality of food and demanding improvement of other basic amenities and also appointing a regular Vice Chancellor.

They were holding placards and raising slogans to highlight their 12 demands.

The talks held by District Collector Musharraf Ali Farooqi and RGUKT Director Satish Kumar with the students continued till 3 a.m. but failed to resolve the deadlock.

The students are insisting that a statement be issued from the Chief Minister's office or Education Minister Indra Reddy or Information Technology Minister K.T. Rama Rao give a written assurance to solve their problems.

Though the Collector and Director assured the students that their problems would be solved, the students demanded that this assurance should come either from the CMO or the ministers.

Since no assurance came from the CMO or the ministers, the students decided to continue the protest. Police have made tight security to prevent any untoward incident.

Meanwhile, Sabitha Indra Reddy is leaving for IIIT Basara to hold direct talks with the agitating students to resolve the issue.

Earlier, the minister had reportedly termed the demands of the students as "silly" evoking strong protest from them.

The students have complained that the food being served in the hostel mess is of poor quality. They alleged that on several occasions, small insects and frogs were found in the food.

Students of the Telangana University in Nizamabad also staged a protest to express solidarity with IIIT Basara students. They slammed the state government for neglecting the state-run universities while opening the doors for private universities.

State BJP chief Bandi Sanjay also hit out at the state government for doing nothing to address the demands of the students even after six days. In an open letter to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao, Sanjay said the Chief Minister had time to form a political party but no time to discuss and solve the problems of students.