Arunachal: Students Union demands action against APU chancellor attackers

The Adi Bane Kebang Youth Wing (APKYW), the Arunachal Students’ Union and the All Bogong Students’ Union have strongly condemned the alleged attack on the chancellor of the Apex Professional University (APU) here by students from the university’s law & forensic sciences department identified as Sanju Tasing and Raja Taloh, on January  5.

 It has “always stood for peace and believes in peaceful dialogue for any grievances redressed,” and condemned the attack as “cowardly and barbaric,” a press release stated.

It requested the district administration and the investigating authority to “take swift measures to identify and initiate appropriate action against the culprits according to the law of the state.”

The organisations said that the incident occurred at around 1:20 pm on 5 January, “when the chancellor was attacked by the duo when he was coming out of the seminar hall after completing a three-day in-house workshop.”

“Sanju Tasing and Raja Taloh, along with 5-6 others stopped the chancellor on the first-floor passage, and demanded that they be declared eligible to write the term-end examination, without complying with the regulatory body’s minimum attendance requirement as well as without filling up re-registration and examination application forms,” the organisations said, adding that the chancellor was attacked with “sharp items, which caused injuries to the left side of his face, one eye, and head.”

They said that the chancellor, who was bleeding profusely, was rushed to his office by the staffers to treat him with first aid.

“But Raja Taloh, along with unidentified people, confined him in his office in a bleeding state and didn’t allow anyone to go inside and provide first aid and locked the main gate of the university,” the organisations said.

On being informed, the police arrived at the scene and took the chancellor to the general hospital here for treatment and surgical procedure. The organisations said that the chancellor received “14 stitches on his face and fracture was noted, involving the anterior wall of the left maxillary sinus, as per CT scan report.”

The chancellor was later airlifted to Guwahati (Assam), where he is undergoing treatment at the Apollo Hospital, they said.

The university has submitted a written complaint to the Pasighat police station regarding the incident, and the police have registered a case (u/s 307, 326 and 34 of IPC), the organisations said.

Tasing and Taloh have been suspended from the university till further orders.