Nearly 120 colleges affiliated to the Kerala Self-Financing Engineering College Managements Association will remain closed on Thursday as a token protest against the attack on its office here on Wednesday morning by a group of workers belonging to the Kerala Students Union (KSU).
The KSU staged a march to the association’s office at Kundanoor protesting against the death of Jishnu Pranoy, an engineering student of the Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre at Pampadi in Thrissur.
The protesters broke windowpanes of the office and raised slogans against the association. A meeting of the office-bearers was progressing then.
Managements’ stance
Jory Mathai, president of the association, said the managements would have no other option but to shut down the colleges indefinitely, if such violent incidents continued.
“A decision to restrict our protest to a token strike was taken in view of the ongoing varsity exams as it will affect the future of the students and cause agony to their parents,” he said.
Prof. Mathai said the ethics committee of the association would probe the allegations against the Nehru College of Engineering and Research Centre.
Asked why the management failed to report the alleged copying incident involving Jishnu, Prof. Mathai said teachers had the power to punish students and also console them as part of the learning process.
Panel plan welcomed
The association welcomed the government decision to constitute a committee to study the issues related to self-financing engineering colleges. It would also request the authorities to ensure the safety and security of the self-financing engineering colleges.
Various organisations, including the KSU and the Students Federation of India (SFI), had organised marches to the Nehru college alleging that mental torture by the college authorities had led to the death of the student.
Jishnu, a first-year computer science student, was found dead hanging in the college hostel.
He was declared brought dead at the hospital. It was reported that the student killed himself after he was caught copying in the examination.
The student organisations alleged that students were subjected to severe mental and physical punishment by the college authorities even for trivial mistakes.
The college management had denied the allegations stating that it were part of a hidden agenda to tarnish the image of the college.
