Four students who were injured in a brawl between student leaders at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) late on Thursday night, February 28, have filed police complaints against Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members.
The clash took place on February 28 during a General Body Meeting (GBM) at JNU’s School of Languages building which was organised by the university to select election committee (EC) members for the upcoming JNU Student Union elections.
Sourya Majumder, a PhD scholar at JNU and Joint Secretary, COLLECTIVE Delhi, informed EdexLive that a complaint was filed by him against members of ABVP yesterday.
“ABVP has been trying to disrupt the election process time and again. A similar incident took place during GBM on February 9. I, along with Priyam from COLLECTIVE, who was also injured during the incident, have identified six members of ABVP, including a former student, and have filed a police complaint against them. We are also planning to give a formal complaint to the Proctor,” said Sourya, one of the four students who were injured during the incident.
Police have also received complaints from the ABVP members.
The left-backed student groups at JNU also carried out a torch rally last night, March 1 at 9 pm against violence being perpetrated by ABVP members to ‘intentionally’ stall the election process.
Meanwhile, JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree D Pandit has also said that strict action will be taken against those involved, irrespective of their political affiliation. Pandit warned the students that any act of violence on campus may lead to deferring the JNUSU polls further.
Madhurima Kundu, a student activist from All India Students' Association (AISA) also filed a police complaint today, March 2, against members of ABVP.
“So far, we have not received any word from the administration. We have read in news reports that the VC has said that it could lead to elections being deferred further but the students have not received any word in person yet. We will file a complaint with the Proctor’s office demanding rustication of the students involved in the violence on Thursday night,” Madhurima said.
Videos from the incident at JNU have caught the attention of netizens.
A video clip of the incident showed a man thrashing students with a stick while in another, a person is seen throwing a bicycle at students.
Other videos circulating on social media purportedly showed individuals being mobbed and beaten up by a group while security personnel of the university tried to rescue them.
Members of ABVP have claimed foul play in electing the candidates of the election committee by the Left-backed student groups.
Umesh Chandra, ABVP state secretary, said that registered candidates from right-wing student groups were denied entry in the GBM.
“They cry about democracy but it is a dictatorship. Candidates are being denied a fair chance to participate in the elections. If they are going to elect the members for the election committee of their choice, why are they pretending to hold GBMs in the first place? The clash started when we tried to get answers from Aishe Ghosh and Mohammad Danish. We filed a police complaint the same night but haven;t received any update yet,” he said.
