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Unrest: Voorhees college closed for three days

Special Correspondent

Students and staff protest management transfer to a trust

VELLORE: The Voorhees College here has been closed for three days from Wednesday, following campus unrest, which started brewing from Monday. The students and teachers stayed away from the college, protesting against the alleged move to transfer the management of the college to a newly formed trust, namely the Voorhees Charitable Trust.

The agitation took a violent turn on Wednesday with the students boycotting the classes and pelting stones at the building, despite the college management announcing its decision on Tuesday to cancel the trust and making an appeal to the students to return to the classes.

A large number of college teachers sat in fast inside the college, urging the management to pass a resolution to cancel the trust and getting that resolution registered in the office of the District Registrar.

In a memorandum submitted to the Bishop of the C.S.I. Vellore Diocese and chairman of the College Governing Board and of the Voorhees College Association, the teaching and non-teaching staff said the schemes launched for fund mobilisation have led to "self promotion" in Voorhees College, "under the cover of infrastructure development".

When asked about the developments, D. Daniel Ezhilarasu, Principal of Voorhees College, told The Hindu that the authors of the Voorhees Charitable Trust have decided, on the advice of the Bishop, to "cancel the trust absolutely and completely", taking into consideration the normal functioning of the college. Mr. Ezhilarasu said that the very move to form the trust came from the alumni of the college, who desired to contribute funds for the development of infrastructure.

They felt that the formation of a trust, "started and run by the college" would help in obtaining exemption from income-tax under section 80-G of the Income Tax Act for all donations made to the trust. He appealed to the students to understand the issue properly and return to their classes after the holidays.

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