Lucknow: A college in Aligarh has installed security cameras in the men's washrooms "to check cheating in exams", prompting a student protest against the "violation of our right to privacy".

Sanjeev Kumar, a student, said the protesters were consulting legal experts about petitioning the high court against the management of the Dharm Samaj Degree College.

The students noticed the cameras on Monday, organised a sit-in and chanted slogans. But college principal Hem Prakash Gupta told reporters the cameras would not be removed.

"We have reports that students conceal notes carrying the answers in their clothes or in the toilets and keep going there to consult them during exams," Gupta said.

"We don't want cheating in our college. The students' protest is baseless because the cameras have been fixed only in the urinals, and that too on the rear walls.... The LLB exam will start soon: we'll keep an eye on the prospective cheats."

Gupta said the disciplinary committee of the law department would be monitoring the CCTVs at the three men's toilets during the exam.

Kumar, the student protester, said the college authorities' move was "disturbing and shameful".

"It's a violation of our right to privacy. If the cameras aren't removed, we'll move court and continue the protest simultaneously," he said.

Run by the Satya Dharm Samaj, a registered society, the 71-year-old co-education college is affiliated to Babasaheb Ambedkar University, Agra. It has 10,000 students.

Minister 'curse'

Uttar Pradesh minister Om Prakash Rajbhar has warned that people attending the rallies of his political rivals would be "cursed" with jaundice, a PTI report said.

The backward classes welfare minister, chief of the Suheldev Bharatiya Samaj Party, a BJP ally, added that those so cursed would recover only after he provided them with the medicine (his blessings).

"You will not attend rallies of any other party. If somebody does, I shall put a curse on them," Rajbhar told a party rally in Ballia on Sunday.

"They will suffer from jaundice, which will be cured only when O.P. Rajbhar provides the medicine."

He demanded a ban on liquor in the state "to open new avenues for development".

Rajbhar had last month kicked up a storm by appearing to associate alcoholism specifically with two castes - the Yadavs and the Rajputs (Kshatriyas) - prompting Samajwadi Party supporters to stone his home.