Summary Security forces also arrest a key Muslim Brotherhood figure on the run since the July coup.
CAIRO (AFP) - Egyptian police entered Al-Azhar University in Cairo on Wednesday to confront Islamist protesters, the first time security forces have moved onto a campus since a 2010 court ruling.
The police took the action at the prestigious Islamic university following a request from its administration, the interior ministry said.
Students supporting deposed Islamist president Mohamed Morsi have held regular and sometimes violent protests since the beginning of the school year in September.
According to the official MENA news agency, the protesting students stormed the university s offices on Wednesday, ransacking them and firing birdshot.
Police entered "the Al-Azhar University campus following a request from the university s head Dr Osama al-Abd to defend lives and public property," said the interior ministry.
The police had obtained permission from the state prosecutor before doing so, the ministry it added.
A police general told AFP it was the first time police had entered a university since a 2010 court ruling banned guards belonging to the interior ministry from operating on their grounds.
The deputy head of Al-Azhar University has aked police to remain until complete calm returns to the campus, MENA reported.
Pressed by police at every turn, Islamists have adopted universities as protest hubs to galvanise their flagging movement four months after the military overthrew Morsi.
Elsewhere in the country, seven students were wounded in the Nile Delta Mansoura University when Islamists clashed with opponents, a security official said.
And clashes between students were also reported in Zagaziq University north of Cairo.
Meanwhile, Egyptian security forces arrested a key Muslim Brotherhood figure on the run since the July coup that toppled the country s Islamist president in a raid on his hideout early Wednesday, the Interior Ministry said.
The arrest of Essam el-Erian, the deputy leader of the Brotherhood s political arm, the Freedom and Justice party, was the latest in a wide-ranging crackdown of both the Islamist group s leaders and its rank-and-file members since the ouster of President Mohammed Morsi, who also hails from the Brotherhood.
Morsi, himself in detention, has been held at an undisclosed military location since the July 3 coup. He is facing charges of inciting supporters to murder his opponents while in office. Morsi s trial is due to begin Nov. 4. It is not yet clear if the 62-year old ousted president will appear in court.
El-Erian is also one of the defendants in the Morsi trial. He is accused of inciting Brotherhood followers to break up anti-Morsi protesters gathered outside the presidential palace late last year.
In photographs broadcast on state television following his arrest, the 59-year-old el-Erian is wearing a white galabiya, the traditional male robe, and a skullcap, and flashes a smile to the cameras.
He is the latest senior Brotherhood leader arrested on warrants from state prosecutors who accuse the group s key figures of crimes ranging from inciting violence to providing weapons to supporters and threatening public order.
The official state news agency MENA said el-Erian was arrested after a raid on an apartment in the eastern suburb of New Cairo, where he had been hiding.
He was later transferred to the Torah prison complex in southern Cairo, where most of the group s arrested leaders are held.
