Day after Jadavpur University clashes, SFI and ABVP blame each other for violence
India

Day after Jadavpur University clashes, SFI and ABVP blame each other for violence

Violent clashes broke out at the Jadavpur University Thursday after Union minister Babul Supriyo visited the campus for an ABVP event.

   
ABVP and SFI clash

SFI students cleaning union room after it was ransacked during the clash with ABVP, at Jadavpur University in Kolkata Friday. | ANI

Kolkata: The Students Federation of India and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad on Friday took out rallies in the city and eleswhere in the state blaming each other for the violence in the Jadavpur University campus on Thursday.

Workers of the SFI held a rally from Dhakuria to the JU campus to protest against the violence during Union minister Babul Supriyo’s visit, while ABVP activists organised a protest march near Mahatma Gandhi’s statue in Mayo Road against the alleged assault on him.

The SFI, students’ wing of the CPI(M), accused Supriyo of provocation and the ABVP of vandalising the JU campus.

“The way ABVP workers vandalised the JU campus reflects the fascist mindset of the BJP and the Sangh Parivar.

We condemn such violence inside the university campus, which is a cradle of free and liberal thinking,” an SFI leader said.

The RSS’s students’ wing ABVP, on the other hand, wondered whether or not “beating up” a Union minister was tolerance.

“The anti-national forces and the Left call us fascist and intolerant. But what kind of tolerance is this is when a union minister is heckled and beaten up inside an educational campus. Is this the kind of tolerance they preach?” senior ABVP leader Subir Haldar said.

Union minister Babul Supriyo was on Thursday shown black flags and heckled by a section of students at Jadavpur University, prompting West Bengal Governor Jagdeep Dhankhar to rush to the institute.

Dhankar, who is the chancellor of the university, also faced demonstrations by the agitators – mostly members of Left-leaning organisations and some activists of the Trinamool Congress Chhatra Parishad, university sources said.

The governor and Supriyo, however, managed to leave the campus with police escort.

Workers of the ABVP, who had held a seminar in the campus which sparked off the unrest at the university, later vandalised the room of the Arts Faculty Students Union.


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