Mizo Students arrested Over Row With Mizo Varsity

Aizawl, May 18 : About 90 activists of Mizo Students Union were arrested by police after they gheraoed the residence of Mizoram University vice chancellor Prof A N Rai at Luangmual locality here today. The Mizo Students Union has served a 'quit Mizoram' diktat to Prof Rai in protest against the 'unlawful' exclusion of local candidates in an interview for teaching posts under the central university.

The MSU activists had burned the effigy of Prof Rai at Treasury Square yesterday and demanded that the vice-chancellor should step down from his office and leave Mizoram. The Mizoram University-Mizo Students Union row erupted with the ongoing recruitment for teaching posts under the university in which the administration allegedly blocked local candidates by means of a criteria set by the university.

The university has set its own criteria in which applicants with first division marks in class ten, class twelve, graduation and post-graduation are given preferences, MSU president C Lalrosanga said.

However, this four-first-division criteria is mentioned neither in the university ordinance nor advertisement for the posts, he added.

The MSU also claimed that it had signed an agreement with the university authorities in 2005 which 'gives preferences to local candidates' over their counterparts from outside with equal qualification. Out of the six candidates called for the interview for the newly introduced mass communication department which began from today, only one was local. Even as the students organization has pressed the university authorities to revoke its earlier decision in favour of the said agreement, the varsitys officials made it very clear that they have done all they can under their capacity.

''We are going by the national norms set by the UGC and there cant be any deviation,'' deputy registrar Lalthanzami Sailo told UNI over phone.

However, the vice-chancellor is empowered to give some relaxation. For instance, the vice-chancellor can call eight candidates to an interview for one post against the prescribed six candidates in certain cases, he added.

The university officials also maintained that there was no such agreement actually signed as claimed by the MSU.

It was more of an informal agreement endorsed by a meeting of MSU leaders and university authorities. Anyway, the agreement states that a minimum of six local candidates would be called for one post it they are eligible for the post. It also states that qualified local candidates would be given preferences.

Regarding the four-first-division criteria strongly argued by the MSU, the university officials stated that this is the highest rankings and not a cutoff.