CHENNAI: The New Year may have started on a wrong note for students of Presidency College, with the violence-prone campus witnessing another clash over ‘bus-route rivalry’ on January 2. Two students were seriously hurt in the clash and six arrested in connection with the case. Following the incident, the posse of security personnel deployed at the once-reputed institution proved an eye sore.
The good news is that the students - jolted to action by the steady barrage of negative publicity - met recently and resolved to turn a new leaf. Around 500 students, lecturers, heads of departments and principal P S Raghuraman gathered at the auditorium of the autonomous college located on Kamarajar Salai, for a brainstorming session convened by the students’ union on Monday.
As C Ramki (22), general secretary of the student’s union told Express, “Our main agenda was to thrash out a permanent solution to the vexed ‘route’ problem that was dividing the students and leading to frequent clashes on the campus. As a first step, we made the students of different ‘route’ factions sit mingled.”
During the two-and-a-half-hour long meeting, ‘leaders’ of various routes expressed regret over all the untoward incidents that rocked the college in the recent past and vowed never to allow a repeat of the violence, the general secretary said.
“The students also resolved to forget all their differences and maintain unity. And in the event of any problem, they promised to approach the students’ union office-bearers and the college management and not to take things in their own hands. We also decided to hold monthly meetings to continue the dialogue,” Ramki added. Describing the meeting as an “appreciable development”, ACP (Triplicane) S Senthil Kumaran, under whose jurisdiction college falls, said students themselves were taking steps to solve the problem.
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