Cape student woken up to the sound of stun grenades

Even though Cape Peninsula University of Technology (CPUT) has assured students that academic activities will continue despite the violence on campus‚ one student described how he was woken up by the sound of stun grenades early on Tuesday morning.

The student who asked to remain anonymous said: “I was sleeping …when all of a sudden I heard the loud bangs of the stun grenades that went off outside our residence. It sounded like bombs going off."

The student is from a small town in the Western Cape and said that heavy police presence and protesters is something that he is not accustomed to.

“There were students protesting early this morning and the police tried to disperse the crowd. It frightens me when the stun grenades go off like that without warning‚” he said.

The student explained that while violence has subsided he was still wary to walk on campus as police vans and private security are patrolling the campus.

“You can’t trust that things will stay peaceful. I don’t always feel safe. We have shuttles that drive us to and from campus but they have also suspended their services‚” he said.

On Monday violence broke out on the campus after protesting students and police clashed.

One classroom was torched. A second security company was brought in on Monday to try to stabilise the situation on campus.

The CPUT spokesperson said that the university would do all it could to avoid a shutdown as they had in the past during Fees Must Fall protests.

“This time round‚ three years later‚ we don’t want to shut down. We have done that in the past. We just feel like we need to remain open even though there are pockets of instability on some campuses‚” she said.

CPUT has six campuses in the Western Cape: Cape Town‚ Belville‚ Wellington‚ Athlone‚ Granger Bay and Mowbray.