SUBHASH MISHRA
Dhanbad, Aug 6: Police on Friday lathi-charged girl students, who failed in the intermediate examination, at Dhanbad collectorate when they reached there to lodge their protest to Health Minister Banna Gupta who was holding a meeting with the district administration officers.
At around 2 pm over150 intermediate failed girl students stormed the second floor of the collectorate to lodge their protest after getting information that the health minister was holding a meeting. The police used lathis to chase away the agitating students.
Dhanbad SDM Surendra Kumar was also seen beating the girl students while they were getting down from the first floor following police action. However, the SDM denied having used force and beating the girls. “No lathi charge was done,” he told media persons.
The agitating girl students said that the Prime Minister had announced that all students would be promoted without taking any examination. The ICSE and CBSC promoted their 10th and 12th board students without holding any examination, then how Jharkhand Academic Council (JAC) failed them in the intermediate examination, they asked.
For the last four days, these failed students had been staging dharna at Randhir Verma Chowk near the collectorate. On Thursday, the agitating students continued their dharna till late evening. They returned home when Deputy Commissioner (DC) Sandeep Kumar interfered and assured them to talk with the officials of JAC over the matter.
Getting information about the police action on intermediate failed girl students, BJP district president Chandra Shekhar Singh, former Dhanbad mayor Chandrashekhar Agrawal, and senior leader Mukesh Pandey reached the collectorate and protested the incident.
“ When the girl students had been agitating for the last four days against JAC, the administration should have deployed women police at the collectorate. It was injustice with girl students to beat them with lathis who had gone to demand justice from the minister,” said the BJP district president.
