PESHAWAR, Jan 8: The students of the botany department, Peshawar University, have vowed to continue their hunger strike till the restoration of the botanical garden which was uprooted last month.

Newly-appointed Vice-chancellor Mumtaz Gul held a meeting with the staff and the students' representatives in his office on Thursday to sort out the issue."We presented our charter of demands to the vice-chancellor and explained the whole situation that led to a hunger strike, but nothing concrete came out of the negotiations," said Fazl Amin, a botany department student's representative, who attended the meeting with the vice-chancellor.

"We were demanding a fixed date for the acceptance of our demands, but the vice-chancellor had not given us any specific answer. Now the issue would be taken up in the syndicate meeting," he said.

The botanical garden located next to the botany department was removed on the directives of the varsity's administration last month for the construction of a building for the bio-technology department that was established two years ago.

The botanical garden was used by 241 students, including those doing MSc, MPhil and PhD students, for their research work. This step enraged the students and sparked protests against erecting the building at the site of the garden.

The students also held a protest demonstration in front of the provincial assembly, after which a parliamentary committee visited the varsity and held talks with the protesting students and the then VC and recommended that the garden be restored in the best interest of students.

The students have also been boycotting classes since Dec 21, 2003, the day when the garden was uprooted. "The students had also tried to go to the vice-chancellor office to take up the issue with the administration, but they were baton-charged on the directives of the new chairman of the botany department," a girl student of the botany department told Dawn .

Fazl Amin said the students had demanded an action against those who had destroyed the botanical garden and those responsible for baton charge on the students and also sought a probe into the auction of the trees which were cut down.

The students also demanded the administration to restore the botanical garden and that the resolution of the provincial assembly on the botanical garden should be given respect.

"Our other demands include reinstatement of the former chairman of the botany department, Prof Abdul Rasheed," said Fazle Amin. "The bio-technology building shouldn't be constructed on the site of the destroyed botanical garden and the alternate place for the botanical garden is not only far away from the department, but it would also be useless as plants could not be grown in one day," another girl student said.

"We were using the botanical garden for our field work, but the administration uprooted it, saying that it was not a botanical garden. Now where will we go to do research?" another Msc final year student lamented.

"It is the third week of strike and our studies are suffering. Our classes were held for only one week since we joined the new session, and the annual examination will commence in August. Without the botanical garden facility, we will face difficulty in our research work," a student of MSc previous observed.

Some students, who belong to Saidu Sharif and Abbottabad, said they had joined the Peshawar University only because of the botanical garden facility which was not available at other universities in the province.