The university hostels of Tehran, centre of six days of pro-democracy protests, were almost deserted yesterday after security forces reasserted control and threatened to hunt down those responsible for violence.
About 150 students, most from out of town, remained behind amid the broken glass and charred rooms left over from the protests and ensuing police attack which touched off the worst unrest the capital has seen since the aftermath of the 1979 Islamic revolution.
The students had called off their protests but were not dropping their demands, which included the sacking of the hardline police chief, a public trial for two officers fired for ordering the attack and the release of the bodies of dead classmates.
Students say scores were injured and at least five killed when police and hardline vigilantes attacked a peaceful rally - the trigger for days of clashes between students and police. The authorities say only one died.
As the demonstrations heated up, many increasingly militant students began to challenge the Islamic leadership - alarming many of their fellow demonstrators and forcing the President, Mr Mohammad Khatami, and other reformers to distance themselves from the students.
The Interior Minister, Mr Abdolvahed Mousavi-Lari, said the security forces had reined in the crisis and were making "widespread efforts" to arrest those behind the trouble.
Hardline officials said there was no room for any group that challenged the principle of clerical rule. Conservative media, led by the state broadcasting company, said millions had taken part in official rallies across the country in support of the Islamic system and clerical rule.
However, pro-reform newspapers - which had earlier rushed to distance themselves from the unrest lest they be tarred as radicals - largely ignored the official demonstrations, focusing instead on the students' grievances, and in particular the savage police attack that touched off the crisis.
"Students: we will continue to press for our rights through legal means," read a banner headline in the Khordad daily, run by one of President Khatami's close allies.
Meanwhile, hardliners called Mr Khatami's government incompetent and demanded the resignation of Mr Mousavi-Lari.
A hardline member of parliament went further, accusing interior ministry officials of collaborating with the students.
"The interior ministry has shown it isn't competent to command the police force. . . One gets the impression that the interior ministry is collaborating and co-ordinating with the movement," Mr Hamidreza Taraqi told the hardline Jebhe newspaper.
Although the ministry has nominal command of the police, its leading officers in fact report directly to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, supreme leader and commander-in-chief of Iran's armed forces.
Several student leaders told local journalists on Wednesday they would continue to press their demands, which also include the lifting of a ban on the main reformist newspaper, Salam, and a crackdown on right-wing "pressure groups".