On Tuesday morning, MNVS activists broke the glass door of the registrar’s chamber next to the vice-chancellor’s room. They also damaged wooden chairs, a TV set and other property and smashed glass bottles outside the gate of the university following a meeting with the vice chancellor to present their demands.

Six members of the MNVS and Samtawadi Chhatrabharati who were arrested by the Azad Maidan Police on Tuesday were all let out on bail on Wednesday.

Vice chancellor of the university, Dr Vijay Khole, refused to comment on the issue. Registrar of the university, K Venkatramani, who was not in his cabin at the time of the attack said, “In my thirty years at this university, I have never seen this kind of an attack on a university official’s cabin.”

Venkatramani added that no decision had yet been taken on the circular that allowed students from outside the state and foreign students of first year Bachelor of Arts to choose either social sciences or one of the languages (Marathi, Hindi, Urdu Gujarati or French) instead of a compulsory language as their subject. He further added that they would soon hold a meeting to discuss other demands of MNVS including a provision to write LLM answer papers in Marathi and sending out circulars in Marathi. According to Venkatramani, the university suffered damages worth Rs 65,000 because of the attacks.    

Lathi-armed security guards posted outside the registrar and the vice chancellor’s cabins said that the attacks happened in a split second and they were unable to stop the activists. “We could not attack them. They were in a group and went on a rampage,” said one of the guards.