A team from an Irish university ran into an agitation by employees of Bengal Engineering and Science University (Besu), who ignored the authorities’ plea to suspend their protest for a day.

As members of the delegation from Queens University, Belfast, were walking up to the Institute Hall for a special convocation on Thursday morning, around 250 employees squatted in the main lobby a few metres away and shouted slogans demanding better pay.

The visitors had come to sign a memorandum of understanding with Besu to open a water resource centre and attend the convocation which conferred an honorary doctorate on their vice-chancellor, Peter Grerson.

“We had requested the employees to suspend their agitation for at least a day, so the image of our university was not sullied before the visitors. But they ignored our plea,” said a Besu official.

The Citu-backed “indefinite agitation” started last week to press for immediate implementation of a state government order allowing 184 non-teaching employees to opt for a higher pay scale.

These employees are being paid according to the state pay scale and the rest according to university scale, which is higher. The Besu board had recently referred the state order back to the education department.

Anil Majhi, who is leading the agitation, admitted that the authorities had requested him to suspend the protest on Thursday. “The request reached us on Wednesday evening, when most of the employees had left for the day. The protest did not tarnish the image of our institution,” he said. Registrar Biman Bandyopadhyay said the convocation was not disrupted.