CNLU students on a hunger strike on CNLU campus in Patna. Picture by Ashok Sinha

Patna, April 20: “Investment Rs 100 crore, results 80 unemployed” read the placard of a student of Chanakya National Law University (CNLU) on the third day of students’ hunger strike.

Eleven final year students, including three girls, are sitting on a hunger strike protesting the university administration’s lackadaisical approach in providing placements to 80 students.

One of the students, Vijay Kumar, has been admitted to the ICU of Sparsh Hospital in the evening after his condition deteriorated.

State human resource development minister P.K. Shahi said: “What the CNLU students are doing is unfair. Many have excelled in the profession being a lawyer and the list includes Kapil Sibal.” Shahi himself is a successful lawyer.

The students, meanwhile, raised slogans against the university administration as well as the state government for their lack of interest in the future of students.

One of the protest slogans read: “After Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, next will be CNLU.”

The students also had words against the vice-chancellor of the university, A. Laxminath. The students blamed him for not making adequate efforts to find companies that could come to the campus for placements. The condition of three fasting students has deteriorated in the past few hours. Doctors have asked them to withdraw the strike, which has affected them as they are appearing for the examination on an empty stomach.

Anand, a final year student of CNLU, told The Telegraph: “We were not left with another option apart from resorting to hunger strike. We are in such a state that neither the state government nor the university administration is listening to our grievances. We had gone to janata darbar to voice our problems, but nothing has been done so far.”

Anand said: “Each of us have invested over Rs 8 lakh in the past five years and yet nobody has got a job yet. In other law universities in the country, placements start from the fourth year itself.”

Another student, Abhiraj, put the blame entirely on the vice-chancellor (VC). “He (the VC) had kept us in the dark for the past five years. He has been saying that companies are not willing to come to Bihar, as the students here are not meritorious. If that is the case, why has Laxminath himself come here from Andhra Pradesh?”

The students pointed out that both CNLU and Chandragupt Institute of Management Patna are Nitish Kumar’s dream projects. They pointed out that while CIMP students of CIMP were getting an annual package of Rs 12 lakh, their CNLU counterparts are yet to open their accounts.

Laxminath told The Telegraph: “We have prepared a placement cell and a Delhi-based law firm has given its consent to visit the university on April 22.”