The South African Students' Congress regrets the unfortunate pronouncements that were made against MEC Bheki Cele.

We regret the statements by our leadership during a students and workers' rally at the Pietermaritzburg campus of the University of KwaZulu-Natal on March 4 against Cele as reported in Sowetan on March 5 and again most recently on March 11.

While we strongly feel that police brutality has increased on campuses in the past three years, we wish to sincerely and unconditionally apologise to the MEC, the ANC and his family for the pain that might have been caused by our unfortunate utterances.

We (Sasco) will be meeting the MEC to apologise about these unfortunate pronouncements and explain our disgust at the unwarranted brutality shown by police against harmless students at Durban University of Technology (DUT).

We have full confidence in the MEC to intervene decisively - as he has always done - to bring stability at UniZulu and Maritzburg University of Technology, and to investigate the unwarranted maximum force used by police at DUT.

We wish to congratulate the MEC for his dedication to fighting crime and drug abuse in South Africa.

We hope and trust that the MEC and the people of KwaZulu-Natal will find it in their hearts to forgive us.

Magasela Mzobe, secretary general, Sasco, Johannesburg