JOIN USThe administration of Delhi University (DU) has started video recording protests taking place in the campus.
The administration claims that the recording has been in vogue for over a year and justified it as “only for legal purposes”, but students allege that the recording was to scare the students away from taking part in protests.
"They are in a way scaring us that since they will have us recorded, they can figure out our faces and find out which courses we are in and there could be repercussions. This is the message they are sending," said Aditi Singh, a student of Sociology who was one of the protesters who noticed such video recording, when women students from the Postgraduate hostel protested against the curfew timing in women hostels recently.
The differently-abled students who protested on Wednesday outside the office of the Vice Chancellor (VC) office confirmed the reports of being video recorded.
“This never used to happen before. Why would the authorities feel the need to record protests. How many cases of violent protests by students have even occurred in DU.Instead of putting in efforts to record us, if they just talk to us, address our grievances, their would be no protests," said Dinesh Kumar, a visually challenged postgraduate student.
A senior official said police have been given the responsibility to record the protests. When asked, a police officer in plain clothes who was recording the protest of differently-abled students said it was an “order”. “I am just following the order given by my boss. If you want to know the reason, please ask my boss," said the police officer standing inside the vice regal lodge, the office of the VC, pointing at his superior. When asked the senior officer was asked, he said “it is nothing” and ordered his junior to switch off the camera.
A senior official of DU said the video recordings were shown to the VC for him to know which students came to his office and for what purpose.
“Also we want to be legally safe. Some students start climbing the gates to enter the lodge. If some mishap takes place, then the media will blame us that we manhandled the students. That is why we keep a recording as a proof to what exactly happened," said the official.