Undergrads vow to continue protest

By Isuri Kaviratne

Three university students involved in the protest outside the University Grants Commission (UGC) office in Colombo were arrested yesterday by Police who broke up the four-week long protest campaign outside the UGC, but students have vowed to recommence their protest tomorrow at the same location. The three students were produced before a magistrate and remanded for two weeks.

The students belonging to the JVP backed Inter University Students’ Union (IUSU) had been protesting about the failure of the authorities to shift one of the faculties of the Sabaragamuwa university from Buttala to the main university. Currently the faculty is located 100 kilometres away from the main university at Belihuloya.

IUSU convenor Duminda Nagamuwa said the ‘satyagraha’ would not stop until the three students were released and if the Government took any further action against them, the students of other universities too would join along with some trade unions, with whom the IUSU has had discussions. Mr. Nagamuwa said the students of the Applied Science Faculty left the premises in Buttala because they didn’t have any facilities there to study.

“Even though the Government asks the students to stop the ‘sathyagraha’, there is nothing else the students could do unless the university administration reopens the university with the Applied Science Faculty transferred to Belihuloya”, he said adding that the number of students at every intake had decreased in the past few years due to lack of facilities.