The students had been waiting for him for long. They accosted him in the afternoon, when Shastri was going by the side entrance to the towered university office building.

This is probably the first time any senior office-bearer of the university has had his face blackened.

ABVP, who had earlier declared that they would a stage a dharna in protest against Shastri's role in the dharna in Monday against the Governor and government, later changed their programme at the last minute, which took the university security by surprise.

Shastri, who went straight to his office, got a change of clothes from his home and was back at work in some 20 minutes.

Shastri condemned the incident and said he would not be cowed down by such tactics. He said that the university staff came to express their solidarity with him when they came to know about the incident. Gujarat University Court (Senate) members K G Mehta, C K Thakkar, Y D Vyas, N K Pathak and others have condemned the incident. In a press release, they have stated that such an incident in Gujarat has sent shock waves to the persons attached to the education field. They have stated that government should take steps to curb such incidents.

Meanwhile ABVP in a press release, has stated that they would not rest till Shastri was dismissed. They said they would be continue the agitation till Shastri lost his grip on university affairs, which he alone had kept tight control on for such a long time.

University security officer Hukam Singh later filed a complaint with the Navarangpura police station in Ahmedabad. The case has been registered against one Vipin Sharma; according to the complaint, he shook hands with Shastri before throwing the hair dye at Shastri, shouting `Shastri hatao Shikshan Bacchao'.

But uncertainty prevailed about the name of the accused, because according to sources within the university the name of the miscreant was Vijay Sharma, a known Akhil Bharat Vidyarthi Parishad leader.