Amid growing public pressure, the Punjab Police on Saturday booked the chancellor and owner of Desh Bhagat University, Fatehgarh Sahib, for duping students enrolled in the four-year nursing course.

The district police had already been facing flak for cane-charging students, most of them hailing from Jammu and Kashmir, who were staging a protest and demanding police action against the university for running the nursing courses without having mandatory approvals from the Punjab Nursing Council and other regulators.

As per the FIR, police have booked chancellor Zora Singh, his relative Tejinder Kaur, university vice-president Harshdeep Singh, HK Sidhu, security in-charge Darshan Singh and seven others by name, and half a dozen unnamed persons under Sections 406 (criminal breach of trust), 420 (cheating), 354B (assault or use of criminal force to woman with intent to disrobe), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restraint), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees or upwards), 506 (criminal intimidation), 148 (rioting) and 149 (unlawful assembly) of the Indian Penal Code.

Students who had joined the four-year nursing course in 2021 had accused the university of misleading them. The students said their course is about to end but the university still didn’t have the necessary approvals. They alleged that the university had approval for admit 60 students for the said course, but it enrolled nearly 150 students.

They have been protesting since August 14, but after a complaint from the university authorities, the police carried out a lathicharge on the students on Thursday. Earlier, the students had also protested during the NAAC team visit, but the varsity called in bouncers, who allegedly manhandled them.

Police officials said an FIR has been registered and those who attacked the students will be arrested soon. HT made several attempts to contact the chancellor Zora Singh, but he remained unavailable for comments.