ALIGARH
Several students of Aligarh Muslim University, AMU were injured last evening after activists from the Hindu Yuva Vahini stromed into the campus violently demanding that a portrait of Mohammad Ali Jinnah – which has been hanging inside the students’ union hall for 80 years – be taken down.
Hours before the former vice president of India, Hamid Ansari, was to visit AMU for an event, some 30 activists of the Hindu Yuva Vahini, accompanied by uniformed policemen, came to Bab-e-Syed – the central gate of AMU. They shouted slogans like ‘We will not let such respect for Jinnah pass in India”, “If you want to remain in India, you must say Vande Mataram’, “Vande Mataram, Jai Shri Ram!’
As students’ union office bearers and other students came to the gate, a mild altercation ensued and six of the HYV activists were handed over to the police. The police reportedly did not file an FIR, and released the accused.
Soon, a large gathering of students collected at the gate to protest what they said was the unwillingness of the police to uphold the law.
The police, in turn, returned with reinforcements, as did the Hindu Yuva Vahini, and what followed, say students, was a lathi charge on the AMU community with HYV activists pelting stones as well. The students ran as the police chased after them inside the campus. More than 65 students were severely injured, including the president of AMUS, Maskoor Ahmed Usmani, secretary Mohammad Fahad, and former vice president Mazin Zaidi, who were taken to hospital.
After being unconscious for more than two hours, Usmani said, “This was a pre-planned, organised attack by the police and Sangh parivar members, against the institution, as well as the students. The police could not handle 30 Hindu Yuva Vahini members, but had no qualms in brutally beating up hundreds of innocent students.”
Later in the day, the university said it had decided to cancel the program for which Ansari had been invited.
After Jawaharlal Nehru University, Hyderabad University and Delhi University’s Ramjas College, AMU has thus become the latest university to come under the radar of Hindutva groups protesting what they claim are “anti-national” activities on campus.
Jinnah was active in the Indian freedom struggle until his Muslim League developed the ‘two nation theory’ that eventually led to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan.
