LUCKNOW: With the Allahabad High Court (Lucknow Bench) cracking the whip, the students and their leaders promptly fell in line and started vacating the 14 hostels of the Lucknow University. Since Friday night, around 90 per cent of the students vacated the hostels on their own.

Proctor meets students

To ensure that they vacated the hostels, University Proctor A.N. Singh met the students on Saturday morning to inform them of the stern directives issued by the High Court. Asking them to leave the hostels, Dr. Singh said that following the court's order, they had no other option left.

However, Vice-Chancellor R.P. Singh has set December 18 as the deadline for the students to leave the hostels.

This had been done to enable the students to write the University Grants Commission examination scheduled for Sunday — December 17.

Prof. Singh said the genuine students who were to appear in competitive examinations, to be held in the next fortnight, would not be evicted but they would not be stopped from voluntarily vacating the premises.

But the Vice-Chancellor clarified that if the other students were found staying in the hostels beyond December 17, they would be forcibly evicted.

As regards the reopening of the university, the Vice-Chancellor has made it clear that till the hostels were completely weeded out of illegal inmates and anti-social elements classes will not commence.

However, the VC said the classes would restart from the month-end.

Illegal occupants

The University administration will release the list of illegal occupants of the hostels on Sunday.

Sources said that there were around 400 illegal occupants in the 14 hostels with the Lal Bahadur Shastri Hostel topping the list of illegal inmates followed by Golden Jubilee Hostel.

Sources said that criminal and anti-social elements formed the support base of the student leaders, enjoying political patronage.

House-hunting

In fact, the hostellers went on a house-hunting spree soon after the verdict of the High Court Bench, comprising Justice Pradeep Kant and Justice A.K. Singh, was delivered on Friday.

The court directed the university authorities that the students should be given time till December 17 to vacate the hostels on their own.

It also empowered the authorities to take suitable action in case they failed to move out.

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