The students and lecturers of Hyderabad University, arrested for vandalising the Vice Chancellor’s office on 22 March, were granted bail on Monday. The students were protesting the VC’s return. They will, however, be released on Tuesday.
Hyderabad’s Municipal Magistrate’s Court granted bail to 25 students and two professors, KY Ratnam and Tathagatha Sengupta.
The whereabouts of the arrested students was unknown for several hours. Friends, family members and the university faculty had no idea where they were being held.
Despite students and professors shuttling between three police stations, some of the arrested could not be located.
The students and the two professors had been lodged in the Cherlapalli jail and remanded to judicial custody.
The students have alleged that many of them were beaten inside police vans, and detained for 36 hours without being produced before a magistrate.
The VC further lamented the unfortunate course of events.
Classes resumed at Hyderabad Central University on Monday after being suspended since 23 March, amid a fresh call for a boycott by Joint Action Committee for Social Justice (JAC) which is leading the protest on the issue of Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula’s suicide.
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