Delhi University simmers as students protest violence

New Delhi: Two students, allegedly owing allegiance to ABVP, were arrested by the police for attacking two JNU students minutes after thousands of protesters from Delhi University, JNU and Jamia Milia ended their peace march on Tuesday protesting against the right-wing student organisation’s violent acts and rape threat to Lady Shri Ram student Gurmehar Kaur.

The minor clash between the two student groups took place at about 5.30 pm outside Khalsa College following which the police swung into action and booked two students. Those arrested have been identified as Prashant Mishra of Kirori Mal College and Vinayak Sharma of Sri Venkateswara College.

It was at about 12.30 pm that about 2,000-odd  protesters hit the campus streets with a call to “save” the varsities from the “onslaught” of ABVP and the “curbing” of dissent.

The students held posters with messages like: “Your nationalism is not above our democracy”. The protesters, mainly comprising students of left forums like AISA, shouted slogans “ABVP go back” and “azaadi” as the march made its way through the roads of North Campus towards the Arts faculty building. The gates of the colleges falling on the route of the march, which began from the gates of Khalsa College, were shut.

The police had set up extensive security arrangements for the protest march. To avert any confrontation, like the February 22 incident, only unarmed police personnel had been deployed in the campus area.

Politicians including CPI (M) leader Sitaram Yechury, Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav, CPI leader D. Raja and JD (U) leader K.C. Tyagi also came out in support of the students and addressed them at the rally.

“This is continuous effort to poison the environment of all the universities. We challenge them to debate. Adventures of ideas are required and we assure you that we will defend your ideas. This confidence in you will create a new India. While BJP’s understanding of nationalism is ‘Hindutva nationalism’, ours is what we call ‘Indian nationalism’”, Mr Yechury said.

Mr Raja said that this was their collective fight to defend constitutional rights. “I am a communist, I don’t need any certificate of nationalism. We fought against the British Raj and won independence. Now, we have to fight against the BJP “raj” to defend our democracy. We will be raising the issue of DU in Parliament,” he said.

The protest was also joined by former JNUSU leader Kanhaiya Kumar who criticised ABVP and said, “You can’t enforce one particular ideology on anyone and there should be room for discussion. I invite ABVP for a discussion and urge them to stop violence. If nothing goes right, then everybody has to turn towards left,” he said.

However, ABVP members tried to disrupt the protest march, while Kanhaiya was speaking and shouted, “Go back Kanhaiya”. But the police thwarted the disruption attempt by ABVP and did not let them come near the actual site of the march.

Meanwhile, some NSUI activists also sat on a day-long hunger strike in order to restore peace and order on campus. Late in the evening, they even took out a “mashaal rally” at the varsity campus while raising slogans of “Vande Mataram” and “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”.

They carried flaming torches as a mark of protest against the alleged violence and atrocities by the AVBP members. An NSUI member even carried a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi during the rally.