ALIGARH, 24 April 2007 — In the absence of a full-time vice chancellor, the Aligarh Muslim University has become a hotbed of criminal activities with various disgruntled groups quite often resorting to fighting. The situation in the campus was tense yesterday but under control. However, it may go out of hands anytime, sources said.
Trouble has been brewing in this prestigious university for the past two weeks, which resulted in postponement of examinations. Examinations were postponed after the outsiders attacked students several times. The university has now become a police barrack with policemen in groups roaming all over the campus. Examinations are now being held under tight security.
The delay in the appointment of new vice chancellor was making the situation worse. Some anti-social elements resorted to violence and took the law into their hands over the issue. The selection, however, has again been postponed, which agitated both the teachers and the students of the AMU as well.
AMU Vice Chancellor Naseem Ahmed recently resigned over the deteriorating situation in the university even before the completion of his tenure and professor M. Salahuddin was appointed as the acting vice chancellor. The meeting of the Executive Council and the AMU Court, which was to be held in the first week of April, was postponed on the pretext that the university staff were deployed for the assembly polls in progress in the state.
The vice president of the AMU Students Union, Mazin Hussain Zaidi, said that some university officials were trying to get their own man into the coveted post and for that they were playing havoc with the students’ career. Zaidi blamed them for the postponement of the court meeting.
