Flashpoint Ramjas College: AISA protests against ABVP, Delhi Police day after violence
A day after violent clashes between student groups in Delhi, hundreds of college students gathered to protest outside the Delhi Police headquarters.
Students protest at the Delhi Police headquarters (ANI photo)
New Delhi,UPDATED: Feb 23, 2017 16:31 IST
Hundreds of students protested outside the Delhi Police headquarters in central Delhi today, a day after clashes between student groups left many, including journalists, injured at the Ramjas College.
The demonstration was organised by Left-wing All India Students Association (AISA) which is demanding action against the BJP-backed Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) for beating up students and others on Wednesday at the Delhi University college.
Here is all you need to know in 10 points:
- The Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPM) described the violence outside Ramjas College as an example of "state machinery-backed violent intolerance" and demanded action against ABVP activists involved in the assault as also against the police for connivance.
- The Delhi Union of Journalists (DUJ) also expressed anger and anguish over the attacks on journalists, teachers and students in Delhi University.
- "There were several assaults (on Wednesday) on journalists covering the disturbances, by protesters as well as police who did not wear nametags," a DUJ statement said. "Phones were snatched, cameras grabbed and photographic evidence of the violence was destroyed," it said.
- Among the journalists assaulted were Times of India correspondent Somreet Bhattacharya and photographer Anindya Chattopadhyay, Quint reporter Taruni Kumar and cameraperson Shiv Kumar Maurya, reporter Anant Prakash, Hindustan Times reporter Ananya Bhardwaj, Times Now reporter Priyank and cameraperson Mazhar Khan, and photographer Anand Sharma.
- Some Delhi University and Jawaharlal Nehru University teachers also joined the protest, condemning what they said was the police inaction when the ABVP activists went on the offensive on Wednesday. The protesters shouted slogans against the ABVP and Delhi Police.
- "We are an amorphous group of people from across universities and no one is leading the demonstration," Delhi University Teachers Association (DUTA) President Nandita Narain said. "We are all equally pained. I condemn the violence on the students and teachers and the lawless behaviour of the ABVP," she added.
- Thursday's protest came as Delhi Police registered a case of rioting and assault against unknown persons following violence between Left-backed AISA and RSS-affiliated ABVP activists.
- The clashes were triggered over an invitation to JNU student Umar Khalid, who was jailed last year over sedition charges, for a literary seminar titled "Cultures of Protest" at Ramjas.
- The two-day event on Tuesday and Wednesday was cancelled after ABVP forced the organisers to withdraw the invite to Khalid, dubbing him "anti-national".
- At least a dozen students and a teachers were also wounded after a group demonstrated against the ABVP, the RSS student wing that dominates the students' union in Delhi University. Some students were locked inside the college as AISA activists alleged ABVP members surrounded them and didn't allow the march.
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Also watch: Ramjas unrest: ABVP enjoys government and institutional patronage, says Umar Khalid
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