Students, Police Clash Again
Patna: June 30, 2008
Angry students with affiliation to the Nationalist Congress Party in Patna on Monday once again clashed with the police and university officials demanding an immediate end to the month-long strike by the Patna University employees that has paralyzed the normal functioning at all colleges and offices.
Pelting stones at the university office and shouting anti-Vice Chancellor slogans, the mob refused to leave the campus despite attempts to break the crowd by the Patna police.
When the police tried to prevent the students from entering the office building, angry protestors then pelted them with stones and bricks hurting some law-enforcement officials in the process.
The police then resorted to a mild lathi charge that succeeded in dispersing the crowd but not before nearly a dozen students and policemen were injured in the riot.
Student leaders later accused the police of unleashing a reign of terror in Bihar where 'they were routinely harassing and brutalizing students who are merely exercising their democratic rights to protest against an inept administration'.
"The PU employees' strike has gone too far and is affecting the very future of the students. Yet, the university administration remains shockingly ignorant to the plight of the students who are the biggest victim in the game of one upmanship between the university employees and the powers that be," said Madan Kumar Gupta, the president of the Students Nationalist Congress Party.

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