• By Mayukh Debnath
  • Thu, 20 Jun 2024 05:55 PM (IST)
  • Source:JND
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Student Protests: Several student outfits on Thursday staged demonstrations outside the Union Ministry of Education as well as the residence of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan in New Delhi, demanding a ban on the National Testing Agency (NTA) over the cancellation of UGC-NET 2024 exam and the alleged paper leak linked to the NEET UG entrance examination. More than two dozen protesting students from different universities and members of various students' outfits were detained amid the demonstrations.

The protestors also sought Pradhan's resignation. The protests, held outside Shastri Bhawan and Pradhan's residence, witnessed the participation of students, including members of political outfits such as the Congress-affiliated NSUI, the AISA, which is the students' wing of the CPI (ML), the Students' Federation of India (SFI), the Democratic Students' Front (DSF), and the Krantikari Yuva Sangathan (KYS).

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The outfits accused the police of manhandling the assaulting the students who participated in the protests. The DSF said, "Instead of addressing the concerns of the students and holding the NTA accountable, the Delhi Police brutally attacked and detained several students including JNUSU (JNU Students' Union) representatives from the protest site." Refuting the claims, Delhi Police said that permission was not taken obtained to protest in the high-security area, which remains under section 144, news agency PTI reported.

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Earlier, on Wednesday, the Education Ministry ordered the cancellation of the UGC-NET 2024 examination held a day prior as inputs suggested that the process of "the conduct of examination may have been compromised". The ministry added that the CBI has been tasked to probe the matter. Both the UGC-NET 2024 and the NEET UG 2024 exams were conducted by the NTA, which has been at the centre of unrelenting controversies recently due to alleged malpractices in the said examinations.

Oppn Attacks Modi Govt

Launching a scathing attack on the Prime Minister Narendra Modi-led central government over the issue, TMC MP Saket Gokhale on Thursday said in a post on X: "The examination process structure of our country has crashed. Paper leaks and irregularities are rampant and the useless NTA is complicit in it."

Meanwhile, the Communist Party of India (Marxist), in a social media post, stated, "First there were discrepancies in CUET, then the NEET Scam, and now UGC-NET was cancelled! The BJP govt has made a complete mockery of the education system."

(With inputs from agencies)