Women students of at least five Delhi University hostels began an indefinite sit-in protest demanding the removal of curfew in their hostels as well as the implementation of the Saksham Committee Report among other demands, they said.
Amisha, a DU student residing at Ambedkar Ganguly Hostel, said that residents of the hostels had reached a “saturation point” with hostel administration imposing arbitrary rules and regularly making sexist comments, she said.
“The administration keeps saying that changing the rules is not in their hands, that’s why we are taking it in our hands,” she added.
Among demands being made by the protesters, include allowing 24-hour entry and exit at all DU women hostels, removal of restrictions on ordering food from outside, abolishing of the interview system to allocate hostel seats, fixed allotment of hostel seats to students for the entire period of their course, transparent elections of wardens among various other measures.
Fundamental right
Arguing against the curfew, the students in a statement said, “.. the humiliating practice of imposing curfew on women students debars us from accessing basic university and social resources, violates our fundamental rights as citizens, infantilises us, is in direct conflict with our autonomy and mobility and is direct encouragement of those who commit public acts of sexual violence by making it appear as if women do not belong to the public space and must be punished when they venture into it.”
Residents of the Undergraduate Hostel for Girls, North Eastern Students House for Women, Rajeev Gandhi Hostel, University Hostel for Women and the Ambedkar Ganguly Hostel participated in the protest.
