120629 Nepal Student union office at TU set ablaze
Nepal Jun 29 2012 “Building” “Office bldg.”
Dead : dead 0 or unknown Burnout : 1 to 29 Injured : injured 0 or unknown
Student union office at TU set ablaze
KATHMANDU: A group set ablaze the office of Free Students’ Union on the Tribhuvan University premises in Kirtipur last night. Police said they got information about the arson at around 10:30 pm. Fire engines extinguished the blaze at around 11:45 pm.
Inspector at the Metropolitan Police Sector Kirtipur, Gyan Kumar Mahato, informed that the fire has destroyed the FSU building. Police have not brought the arsonists to book yet.
Mahato said they will initiate an investigation into the incident, suspected to be the act of a group of disgruntled students from the Department of Economics, once the campus and the FSU decide on the course of action. Police estimated that property worth Rs 2 million was destroyed in the fire. President of the FSU at TU, Himal Sharma, said the destroyed items include historical documents of the FSU dating back to 1979. He claimed a group of students from the economics department, who had boycotted last year’s MA (Economics) first year exams stating that questions were difficult, had torched the FSU office after the publication of exam results on Friday. “The dissatisfied lot had pressed that the department should either grant them pass marks or make arrangements for reexamination,” he said.
The exam controller’s office at the TU has said conducting the exam again is out of the question.
FSU is against granting pass marks to students, who did not sit for the exam, Sharma said, adding that this is why the students vented their ire at the student body. The same group is believed to have vandalised the economics department a week ago.
Sharma made it clear that no student union was behind yesterday’s act. FSU said it will write to TU vice-chancellor tomorrow to assign a high-level committee to investigate the incident and take action against the arsonists.
Student unions in the university have condemned yesterday’s act, though the university campus is yet to comment on it. A decade ago, a group of students of the Department of English had torched the department building to ‘express’ their dissatisfaction with the marks they obtained.
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Web Source: The Himalayan Times