Lucknow, April 6: The Indian Institute of Information Technology at Allahabad has virtually shut down because of an eight-day students’ protest on the campus after a college bus crushed a first-year boy to death.

Insiders say the protests, which have crippled academic work at one of the leading engineering colleges, show that the IIIT will have to learn to handle student issues better.

The target of the students’ ire is director M.D. Tiwari who has been accused of being “high-handed”.

“We have been waiting to get an audience from the board of governors. After eight days of agonising protests on the streets in which female students also participated and even slept on the road, we have informed the chairman about the sequence of events after the death of a student on the campus,” said one of the protesters.

“He has asked for some time to look into our grievances,” said the student, refusing to identify himself.

IIIT spokesperson Pankaj Mishra said the administration had already set up a corpus fund with contributions from faculty members and staff in memory of the dead student.

Mishra claimed the girls’ and the boys’ hostels were open but they were not staying there in protest.

The students, however, said they had to sleep under the open sky as authorities disconnected power and water supply to the hostels. They bought food from roadside stalls and used laptops as pillows. The administration had called the RAF to intimidate them, they alleged.

Mishra has claimed that the administration is ready to launch an inquiry, as demanded by the students.

“We have been saying that all other issues can be settled through talks provided the students are willing to do so but they were demanding the removal of the director. (Only) the board of governors can do that,” he said.

There is little let-up in the students’ anger and negotiations were on till this afternoon. A big lock hung at the gate of the institute.

The protest started on April 2, three days after the death of Akshay Tyagi. The students claim that an IIIT bus mowed down Akshay, a first-year student, when the driver backed up without blowing the horn. Tyagi died on the spot. The driver escaped with the help of guards and college staff, the students allege.

Akshay was a good student who came from an economically weak family and had already lost his father, the students said, demanding proper compensation for his family.

The students said the day after the accident, IIIT officials reached Naini hostel, around 25km from the main campus, and asked the students not to file an FIR against the institute.

When the students were unwilling to give in, the authorities phoned the parents of the eyewitnesses and complained that their children were causing trouble.

The next day, Vinod Vaish, an institute employee, lodged an FIR giving “false information” that Akshay had fallen from a running bus, provoking the students into starting the demonstrations.

A section of the teachers said the stir snowballed when the administration failed to handle the situation on March 30 by listening to the students.

The students want the driver to be prosecuted.

The institute has over 700 students from all across the country.

IIIT’s reputation has suffered as the agitation has dragged on for more than a week. Some teachers are said to be unhappy with the way the administration handled the protests after Akshay’s death.