Bogotá, Colombia — The police have arrested at least eight people, including a professor at a public university, in connection with an investigation into alleged guerrilla activities on Colombian campuses.

The investigation was triggered by the military’s capture in February of a flash memory stick from a camp of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, guerrillas who have been fighting for decades to overthrow Colombia’s elected governments and are labeled terrorists by the United States and Colombian governments. The information on the memory stick included the identities of thousands of guerrilla agents, including 55 doing subversive work at the nation’s universities, according to El Tiempo (in Spanish), a newspaper.

Last week several public universities issued protests after government antiterrorism investigators demanded access to their lists of students and professors in order to identify guerrilla collaborators.

Moisés Wasserman, rector of the National University, said in a written statement that the request amounted to “treating the whole university community like terrorists.”

The investigators then said they were interested in only the 55 individuals. On Friday eight people, including the professor, were arrested, according to El Tiempo. The professor was not identified.

The controversy followed recent reports of guerrilla recruiting at universities that stemmed from a video showing hooded youths yelling antigovernment slogans at a campus rally in Bogotá. —Mike Ceaser