BJP leader will give Rs 1 lakh to the person who will remove the portrait of Jinnah

With uneasy calm prevailed in the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) campus after Wednesday’s violence, a ruling Party leader from the district announced a bounty of Rs 1 lakh to the person who will remove the portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah from the campus. 

``I will pay Rs 1 lakh to the person who will remove the portrait of Jinnah from the University and one lakh further if the same be replaced by Chatrapati Shivaji or any other Hindu warrior”, announced a leader of BJP coming from minority community. The Hindu outfit leaders still stick to their demand of immediately removing the Jinnah’s portrait and action against those who dared to put it in the campus or had praises for the leaders. 

Meanwhile the AMU students also sat on an indefinite dharna on Thursday morning demanding action against the protestors.  The AMU Students’ Union (AMUSU) alleged that violence on the campus was a “deliberate and pre-planned attempt” to attack former vice president Hamid Ansari, who was at that time barely 100 metres away at the university guest house, from where the violence erupted. “Our protest will continue indefinitely till the police takes action against those who were actually targeting the former vice president who had come to the AMU where he was to be granted a life membership of the Students’ Union,” AMUSU said in a statement issued in Aligarh on Thursday morning. 

 President, AMUSU, Mashkoor Ahmad Usmani, who was also injured in Wednesday’s lathicharge by the police, said the students would approach the National Human Right Commission “with the help of all secular organizations of the country” if all doors to justice are closed by the state government.  A spokesman of the varsity strongly condemned Wednesday’s “trespassing” of the university boundary by Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) activists who were raising “highly objectionable and inflammatory slogans”.  “We hope that the state government will take strong action against the Hindu Yuva Vahini youths who deliberately tried to disturb peace on the university campus,” he said.

The AMU Teachers’ Association (AMUTA) held an emergency meeting on Wednesday night and passed a resolution stating that action by the HYV was a “deliberate criminal conspiracy” in which the police instead of punishing the aggressors, indulged in “brutal action” against the students, who had later collected at the gate to protest the failure of the police to prevent the outsiders from entering the campus. It has demanded that an FIR should be lodged against those who “masterminded the entire operation”. The AMUTA blamed the police for its “glaring security breach” for allowing “armed goons” to reach a spot which was just adjoining the university guest house where the former vice president was staying.

It may be mentioned that about 20 students besides policemen were injured when violence broke out on the gate of the campus. The trouble started after the right-wing protestors barged into the varsity demanding removal of the portrait of Muhammad Ali Jinnah displayed on the campus.  Following the violence, policemen in large numbers and a RAF contingent were deployed near the Baab-e-Syed gate to maintain law and order.