Friday saw student organisations staging a state-wide bandh and resulting in school closures across Telangana due to allegations of leakage of the NEET UG and the irregularities in the national-level entrance examinations.
The protesters also refused to fault the police for allegedly using lathis on students protesting in New Delhi over the examination controversy.
Due to the bandh, supported by various student and youth organizations such as NSUI, SFI, AISF, AISA, DYFI, AIYF, PDSU, AIFDS, AISB, AIPSU and SIO, schools, junior colleges, degree colleges and universities closed across the state. A number of universities canceled tests that were supposed to take place the day.
Student leaders issued a call to oust Union Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan for alleged NEET paper leak and recurrence of problems in conducting public exams and demanded his moral responsibility from Pradhan.
AISF state secretary Putta Laxman demanded immediate proper action to be taken against those involved in the alleged paper leakage, and withdrawal of cases filed against the protesting students while urging reforms for transparency in the examination system.
In the interim, NSUI state president Yadavalli Venkataswamy insisted that the bandh was peaceful and demanded Rs 1 crore compensation to the families who claimed their students had committed suicide after the controversy over exams.
The bandh also had a strong impact on education in Hyderabad, and thousands of private schools and colleges also had to cancel classes. Several universities such as Osmania University, Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU) and Kaloji Narayana Rao University of Health Sciences have announced that they have suspended all examinations on Friday.
The protest also garnered political support from both Congress and Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) who organised showcases of protest in keeping with the students’ demands.