Thousands of activists of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and supporters took out a protest march as a counter march carried out by the All India Students’ Association (AISA) on Tuesday. Protesters were also seen holding placards saying ‘Anti-Nationals go back’ and ‘Save our campuses from Anti-nationalist’.
The ‘Save DU’ march began on Thursday from the Arts Faculty and passed through several colleges of university’s North campus. Activists while chanting ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, ‘Kashmir ho ya Guwahati, apna desh apni maati’ and ‘Vande Matram’ said that they will not tolerate any student chanting slogans that may lead to the disintegration of country.
Students other than DU were also seen participating in huge numbers on Thursday.
Accusing the left group for inciting violence in campus, the ABVP national media convener Saket Bahuguna said, “DU has been peaceful because ABVP has dominated the campus. But now we are being wrongly accused of indulging in violence. The violence last week happened because there were aggressors of the left and outsiders who had come from outside.”
Rahul Mishra, a second year student of law Faculty said that the protest by AISA people, JNU students and their teachers have polluted campus environment. The peace is lost now and most of my friends are scared to join classes amid such an unnecessary protest by other university’s students.
“Sitting on hunger strike, making educational campuses a political hub for political mileage and doing all the drama except study are an integral part of JNU and now they are trying to impose the same in our peaceful campus. They are also taking help of social media to incite violence among students on the basis of ideology,” he said.
President of DU Students’ Union (DUSU), Amit Tanwar says, “We will not tolerate those who talk about breaking the country. The ‘Save DU' march is planned to bring back peace in Delhi University which has seen unprecedented violence by AISA activists over a seminar at the Ramjas College. The seminar was later cancelled on February 22.”
Talking to The Pioneer, an ABVP member said that the organisation had been wrongly framed for the violence at Ramjas College.
“The leftist people have been indulging in violence everywhere such as Hyderabad University, JNU and this time DU. We always stand against dirty politics of these people. Girls have stopped coming to classes because of these events,” he said.
The reason of ongoing series of protest one after another started last week when an invite was sent to JNU students Umer Khalid and Shehla Rashid to address a seminar on 'Culture of Protests' which was later withdrawn by the college authorities following opposition by the ABVP.