FTII Row: Gajendra Chauhan chairs first meeting, amidst student protests and detention

Students staged a demonstration at the Institute gate, shouting slogans like "Gajendra Chauhan Go back", which lead to a scuffle between the police and the students.

Written by: India.com News Desk

Updated: January 7, 2016, 1:03 PM IST

https://www.india.com/news/india/ftii-row-ganjendra-chauhan-chairs-first-meeting-amidst-student-protests-and-detention-842200/

FTII Row: Gajendra Chauhan chairs first meeting, amidst student protests and detention

Pune, January 7: Film and Telivision Institute of India (FTII) chairman Gajendra Chauhan chaired his first meeting after protests on his appointment erupted in 2015, on Thursday. The meeting was conducted against the backdrop of student protests that turned violent on Thursday, after police lathicharged on peacefully protesting students in order to disperse them. Several students were also detained by the police. The protests were staged by the members of the FTII Students Federation (FSA).

Students staged a demonstration at the Institute gate, shouting slogans like “Gajendra Chauhan Go back”, which lead to a scuffle between the police and the students. One of the students, who was being put in the police van, to be whisked away to the station, alleged, “We have been brutally targeted by police who lathi-charged us with the knowledge of FTII administration.” The prestigious institute has been seeing protests since the past year, after several members of the who were appointed, were members of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). Also Read: Standoff between police, FTII students amid protest on Gajendra Chauhan

Students had also gone a hunger strike to desperately push for their demand to remove Chauhan as the chairman. Although the hunger strike had been called off, the students had vowed to continue resisting. A warning had been issued by the police to the students on Wednesday, to maintain peace as the FTII society was to chair its first meeting under Chauhan on Thursday. Tushar Joshi, Deputy Commissioner of Police, told PTI, ““We had asked the students to demonstrate peacefully but we had to use force because they wanted to block the way to the institute and therefore we had to detain them. We used minimum force.”