New Delhi, Jan. 23: Two students who had shouted slogans during Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech at a Lucknow university yesterday were detained by police for five hours before one of them was allegedly thrown out of the hostel guestroom at night.

Kamal Jaiswal, the proctor at Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar University, denied having asked out-of-towner Ram Karan to vacate the guestroom but told The Telegraph the duo's actions at the convocation were an "insult to the nation".

Karan and Amarendra Kumar Arya, who had come to collect their Master of Law degrees, said they had shouted "go back Modi" to protest caste discrimination on campuses, a menace that led to Rohith Vemula's suicide at Hyderabad Central University this week.

The convocation ceremony saw Modi break his five-day silence on the suicide, saying he could feel the pain of Rohith's parents and suggesting the Dalit research scholar had been driven to death.

Around 3.45pm, minutes after the sloganeering, the cops guarding the event hustled the duo out of the hall, bundled them into a police car and took them to a police chowki (post), the two students said over the phone today.

They said the police detained them for nearly five hours but only asked a few routine questions, such as whether anyone had put them up to the protest.

A little before 9pm, the cops dropped the duo at the campus where Karan, a resident of Kaushambi in eastern Uttar Pradesh, had booked the guestroom at Sidharth hostel for January 21 and 22.

Both students used to be hostel inmates during the period of their course but Arya, who now practises in Delhi, had found accommodation outside.

"The proctor said, 'Vacate the hostel immediately'," Karan alleged. "I could have stayed till this morning but I had no choice."

He said he eventually put up with a friend in the city.

Jaiswal said: "Nobody asked him to leave. You can come and check the hostel record. He has gone on his own. He is now making malicious allegations to tarnish the institution."

The proctor added: "The Prime Minister was our guest. We feel sorry for what happened yesterday. Whatever they say, their action amounts to insulting the nation."

Jaiswal said the university would from now on counsel its students on how to conduct themselves at convocations and other official events.

Vice-chancellor R.C. Sobti's mobile phone was switched off.

Karan said he would protest the university's actions at various forums.

"We want the Centre to pass a law to check discrimination against students on the basis of caste or religion. The saffronisation of educational institutions should stop," he said.

There's no specific law now to deal with caste discrimination on campuses. The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and various sections of the penal code are invoked against such offences.

In 2012, the University Grants Commission had notified the UGC (Promotion of Equity in Higher Educational Institutions) Regulation asking every college and university to appoint an anti-discrimination officer to address grievances.

Commission sources said the regulation was issued following instances of campus discrimination, including some against students from the Northeast, but there was no monitoring or follow-up.

P.S. Krishnan, former secretary to the erstwhile welfare ministry and an expert on affirmative action, said hardly any university had appointed a dedicated officer to deal with discrimination.

"Nobody is serious on these issues. The whole approach of the government, whoever is in power, is ad-hocism," he said.