Student unions are authorized to stick posters only on notice boards or billboards provided for this purpose. In this case, written permission from the Head Warden, DCW or Home Warden has become mandatory. The UoH management has also decided to develop guidelines on the acceptable content of posters and banners.

Hyderabad: The University of Hyderabad (UoH) administration has banned the student community from pasting posters and other materials on walls, doors, rooms and corridors of hostels.

Student unions are authorized to stick posters only on notice boards or billboards provided for this purpose. In this case, written permission from the Head Warden, DCW or Home Warden has become mandatory. The UoH management has also decided to develop guidelines on the acceptable content of posters and banners.

To this effect, the UoH recently issued an order detailing new measures regarding the pasting of posters, in view of the recent incident where posters of prominent national leaders were pasted in the urinals of a men’s hostel on campus.

The university has decided to provide separate notice boards for student activities at different places on campus, including hostels, to avoid posters and graffiti on walls and elsewhere. It also decided to remove existing posters and graffiti on the walls of hostels and other places and repaint them.

As per the order, non-compliance with the regulations will be treated as indiscipline and the matter will be referred to the supervisory board for necessary disciplinary action in accordance with the university rules.

The new measures did not go down well with the student community who strongly criticized and opposed the order.

In a statement, the SFI UoH unit said the order, disguised as a step toward “cleanliness,” appears to be a masterstroke to sanitize dissent on campus while “keeping community favoritism impeccable.” The new regulations are another tool in the administration’s agenda to silence dissent, he said.

The student organization has demanded from the university administration the report of the committee formed to investigate the violence against students on April 17. The SFI UoH unit also questioned the university administration’s silence over the vandalism of Dr BR Ambedkar’s portraits.