A no-objection certificate from police to hold any event, allowing entry to only pre-registered students, security drills, CCTVs at gates — Delhi University Monday issued a 17-point advisory to colleges and departments for holding any programme, event or fest.

This comes following the alleged harassment of students of Indraprastha College for Women (IPCW) during their annual fest last month, and similar incidents at Miranda House and Gargi College over the past few years.

On March 29, IP college students had alleged that some men scaled its boundary wall and harassed them during the fest, sparking several protests over the alleged security lapses. On April 5, Delhi Police “bound down” five students of Delhi University and Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University.

Speaking to Media, DU Proctor Rajni Abbi said, “The university, along with Delhi Police’s inputs has drafted a set of guidelines, keeping in mind that several colleges have fests coming up. These guidelines… have nothing to do with the suggestions provided by the DCW.”

Last week, the Delhi Commission for Women (DCW) had issued interim recommendations to the college, DU and Delhi Police.

What guidelines say

DU’s advisory states that college authorities should have mandated security drills along with Delhi Police before holding any event. “Entry for events should be through pre-registration like Google forms. Details of the event i.e date, venue, expected number of participants should be maintained and submitted to the police with a copy,” it said.

Further, a police NOC is now a must for holding any event. “No event where outside students are invited will be organised without NOC from police. Prior to any such event, security liasoning meeting in advance to be conducted with Fire, Police, Electricity, College/University Security etc,” one of the guidelines stated.

Other guidelines state that the responsibility for events will lie with college/department authorities and that they should act with due diligence.

Apart from this, the guidelines also state that prior to any event, there should be an assessment of the college’s boundary wall. “If found low, concertina wires should be installed to prevent outsiders from scaling the walls,” it states.

It further said CCTVs and a PA system are a must at all gates of colleges.

Reacting to the guidelines, Miranda House principal Bijayalaxmi Nanda said: “If we give the police a fair idea beforehand about how much the capacity of students at an event is going to be, that would always be better than calling them at the last minute. Perhaps, that’s what they mean by ‘no objection’. I would like to see it as a supportive mechanism rather than as a stringent policy. The guidelines include not just the internal complaints committee but also student representatives, which is empowering. Along with that, we need to have awareness generation in co-education colleges.”

Nanda further stated that the guidelines, which suggest to make changes to college infrastructure, like that of installing CCTVs and wires on low boundary walls, are being worked upon this week.

Some IP college students, meanwhile, expressed their reservations.

Anjali, a student of IPCW associated with AISA, said: “We are not satisfied as there is no response to our demands for student representation. This advisory has nothing on the basis of the students’ inputs.”

“There was no student representation in the committee that constituted these guidelines. How could they know what the students need in that case? Most of these guidelines were already in place earlier as well, but that did not stop the college from going through a security lapse,” added Shambhavi, a second-year student of the college.