AAP leaders’ statements played a role in the unrest at Mohali-based Chandigarh University

When politics is reduced to a gladiatorial spectacle, leaders don’t want to be seen as slow and flat-footed. The top guns of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) are no exception. So, when there were reports, rather rumours, about a rampant sex-video scandal at the Mohali-based Chandigarh University, they were fast on the draw. But what could be a life-saving skill in the Wild West can be a liability in a democratic polity. This seems to be the root-cause of the protests and disruptions at the Chandigarh University. According to the university authorities and police, a student shared her video with her 23-year-old boyfriend. Apparently, the video was leaked, which opened the floodgates of rumours of about scores of “objectionable” videos of other girls and even of a suicide attempt. The girl students got so scared that they were reluctant to use washrooms in the university premises. What exacerbated the salacious stories and fears were the dialogue-baazi by AAP leaders. At 10.18 am on Sunday, AAP boss and Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted about the “objectionable videos of many girl students” which had become viral. There would be “stringent punishment” for the culprits, he promised. Fourteen minutes later, AAP Parliamentarian and chairman of advisory panel to the Punjab government Raghav Chadha tweeted that the “Punjab government will leave no stone unturned to bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice.” At 11.59 am, Punjab Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, who is in Germany, tweeted, “Our daughters are our pride… have ordered high-level inquiry into the incident…will take strict action against whoever is guilty.”

These three are the most powerful men—perhaps in that order—as far as Punjab is concerned. It looks like they were responding to the unconfirmed reports and/or social media stories without bothering to gather many inputs from the state officials, civil as well as police. When someone as important as Kejriwal talks about objectionable videos of many girl students, who would suspect the authenticity of, what now appear to be, baseless rumours. So, students alleged that a girl student shot 60 videos of her hostel mates and forwarded them to her boyfriend. There was also the allegation of some videos getting uploaded on social media and porn websites. Police have denied all this. Senior police officer Navneet Singh Virk told a news channel that the cops found only four videos in the girl’s phone of herself, and all of them were her own. Further, she didn’t send any video to anyone except her boyfriend. Police as well as Chandigarh University’s Students Welfare Director Arvinder Kang made it clear that there were no suicide attempts. Meanwhile the Punjab Police has set up a three-member, all-woman special investigation team to look into the matter. Not just the AAP but the entire political class should learn a lesson from this episode: verify facts before making a statement.