Imphal, Oct. 24: The students of Manipur University, led by various tribal students' groups, staged a protest today over the university's decision to adopt central reservation norms regarding admission process.

Police fired tear-gas shells to disperse the students, who were agitating at the varsity's gate, and arrested five of them.

"We will not lift our agitation until the university adopts the norms that reserve 31 per cent for the Scheduled Tribes (ST)," said Joseph Hmar, a student. "We have lined up rallies and blockades. But we will decide our next course of action tomorrow after seeing how the police deal with the arrested students," added Joseph.

The students became furious after the varsity's academic council decided to adopt the central reservation norms that provide 15 per cent reservation for the SCs, 7.5 per cent for STs and 27 per cent for other backward classes (OBCs).

The academic council had taken the resolution twice to implement the central norms in the past two months. However, it could not implement them as a section of students, especially with tribal background, objected to it.

The decision was taken during a meeting of all heads of the departments and deans on Friday after Amar Yumnam, a professor of economics department, was appointed the new vice-chancellor in-charge.

A section of students has been protesting against the implementation of the central norms, while others have been demanding implementation of the Manipur High Court directives.

The high court, in its order last year, directed the university to fix the reservation as 2 per cent for SCs, 31 per cent for STs and 17 per cent for OBCs.

The varsity has been functioning without a full-time vice-chancellor after H. Nandakumar Sharma retired on August 21. Two vice-chancellor in-charges resigned this month.

Immediately after assuming charge, Yumnam announced to begin the admission process and complete it by Saturday, besides resuming classes by October 31.

The admission process for the 2016-17 session has been halted because of the row over reservation norms.

All classes were suspended indefinitely since October 4 after the students' agitation over the issue turned violent.

The National Students' Union of India, Manipur, today condemned the academic council's "inability" to resolve the problem and appealed to the authority to restore normality on campus to save the academic career of the students.