JNU students clash over event against Afzal Guru hanging

The university turned into a battleground on Tuesday as the Right and the Left clashed when a group of Left-oriented students called a meet to commemorate the “judicial killing” of the duo.

Afzal Guru, who was hanged on February 9, 2013 for his role in the 2001 attack on Parliament, and the lesser-known co-founder of Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) Maqbool Bhat, who was hanged in 1984, are “martyrs” in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

The university turned into a battleground on Tuesday as the Right and the Left clashed when a group of Left-oriented students called a meet to commemorate the “judicial killing” of the duo. The situation turned violent and administration had to call in the police.

A poster, which was pasted all across the campus, read: “There will be an art and a photo exhibition portraying the history of the occupation of Kashmir and the people’s struggle against it.”

Interestingly, the commemorative meeting went ahead even after the JNU administration revoked permission for the programme in the wake of complaints from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Peeved at this, the ABVP has called upon its cadre to impose a general bandh on the JNU campus on Wednesday.

While the meet, couched as a “Cultural Evening of Protest” in solidarity with the “struggle of the Kashmiri People for their democratic right to self determination” was supposed to commence in front of the Sabarmati hostel at 5pm, the ABVP registered its reservations against the move with the vice-chancellor (VC) M Jagdesh Kumar. Tensions rose after Kumar cancelled permission for the event.

“As the vice-chancellor of the university, it is my responsibility to maintain the peace and tranquility of the campus. Hence, the top administrations of the campus met this evening and decided that this protest cannot be given permission. We informed the organisers that we had cancelled permission, which they claimed to be a cultural event. The top administration of the varsity decided that in the interest of the peace and calm of the university, the permission was cancelled,” Kumar told Mail Today.

Meanwhile, the station house officer (SHO) of Vasant Kunj police station told Mail Today that the JNU administration had informed the police about the possibility of a confrontation between students of differing ideological hues over the contentious issue, thus the police presence on the campus. “No untoward incident occurred at the venue, though preventive measures had been taken by the police,” said the police official.

Joint secretary of JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) Saurabh Kumar Sharma told Mail Today that not only did the protest meet take place in front of Sabarmati hostel, the protesters staged a march from the hostel to the Ganga Dhahba near the main gate.

According to the ABVP and its representative in the JNUSU Sarah Kumar Sharma the protest organised to glorify terrorists was attended by scores of outsiders who were not students of the varsity.  “When we tried to stop the procession while it was moving FROM sabarmati to Ganga Dhaba by lying on the road, an outsider in the protest March showed us a country made pistol or katta and then disappeared in side the crowd,” Sharma told Mail Today.

“We had expressed our reservations against such anti-national activities taking place on the campus to the authorities. Despite them having denied permission for the event, it still went ahead. This is deplorable,” said Sharma.

Meanwhile, president of the JNUSU and AISF leader Kanhaiya Kumar told Mail Today that the Left organisations were against curbing of freedom of expression and the right to protest democratically and had thus supported the meet. “The administration told the organisers at the last moment that the programme had been cancelled who in turn informed the administration that the denial had not come in time. Though we did not organise the event, we went to support it in principle. ABVP is not the police, nor the guard here,” he said.