BHUBANESWAR (PTI): The anti-reservation stir in Orissa state in Eastern India Aug.21 looked set to lake a new tum with two college students at Jaipur in Cuttack district threatening self-immolation.
Earlier, anti-reservation activists set fire to a police outpost at Jordan a in Dhenkanal district.
Official reports received here said the two students had conveyed their decision to commit self-immolating to the College principal. The authorities had taken up the matter with their parents.
Students in Orissa have been agitating for the past 12 days against the movements policy of increased reservation of seats in educational institutions for backward tribes and castes.
The reservation issue rocked the country in the summer of 1990 after the then prime minister P.V. Singh publicly announced the government’s intention of implementing a reservation policy. A countrywide protest by students that was often violent and suicidal forced the government to put the reservation plan into cold storage. Self-immolation was a fanatically favorite form of protest.
V.P. Singhs Janata Dal which advocates the cause of backward classes in no uncertain terms, is in power in Orissa.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 4, 1992
