The agitating staff unions at the Tribhuvan University (TU) locked in top three officials of the university for over six hours on Monday.

Vice-chancellor Hira Bahadur Maharjan, Rector Guna Nidhi Neupane and Registrar Chandra Mani Poudel were locked in at the Centre for Education Development and Research office in Balkhu.

The TU employees have been staging protests for the last three months putting forth an 11-point demand. Their demands include dress allowance on a par with civil servants and staff promotion through internal competitions, among others. In February, the protesters had padlocked the TU Central Office for three weeks, crippling the administrative work at the country’s oldest university.

The protesters freed the officials after the latter expressed their commitment to address their demands. “We have made a formal appeal to the government with recommendations for resolving the existing standoff,” said Poudel.

On February 9, the university had formed a three-member committee led by Shree Krishna Shrestha to recommend a possible solution to the stalemate and that the panel has already submitted its report.

source: The Kathmandu Post, 5 March 2012