ANANTAPUR: Students led by several student unions took out the `shava yatra' carrying an effigy of Sri Krishanadevaraya University (SKU) Vice-Chancellor A. Rama Rao and later burnt it on the campus here on Friday, in protest against the authorities' decision not to issue hall tickets to students staying in hostels until they cleared mess bill dues by March 15.

Led by Rammohan Reddy of NSUI, Ramanna of AISF, Amarnath of SFI, Aswartha of ABVP and Rajagopal of TNSF, they forced the students to boycott classes. The union leaders demanded reduction in semester examination fee, construction of engineering college on the campus and permission for students staying in hostels to pay the mess bills after the exams.

The university had recently decided not to issue hall tickets to students who failed to clear the mess bills by March 15 every year, as the bill dues piled up to some Rs. 1.5 crores over the last 10 years, which made it difficult to run the hostels.

Meanwhile, union members accosted District Vocational Education Officer Laxmanna in the afternoon, demanding issuance of hall-tickets to Intermediate students with less than 75 per cent attendance.

Police inaction

Mr Laxmanna was returning from collectorate after discussing the same matter with the District Collector. He informed the Collector that only the BIE officials could take a decision about any relaxation in the norm of attendance.

The students detained the officer on the road till 3.30 pm before taking him to Sapthagiri Circle where the protest continued till 8.45 pm.

The police refused to intervene keeping in mind the incidents involving them and the union leaders over the recent death of a nursing college student allegedly due to ragging.

The union leaders demanded relaxation in the attendance norm at least for the current academic year as a large number of students did not get the hall tickets.

They were also not in a position to pay fine to get the hall tickets due to drought conditions, they said.

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