New Delhi: Several students of Delhi’s Jamia Millia University were detained by police Wednesday ahead of their plans to screen a controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the 2002 Gujarat riots.
Security was stepped up outside the southeast Delhi college Wednesday, following an order by authorities that they would not allow any unauthorised gathering on campus after the Students Federation of India — affiliated to the Communist Party of India (Marxists) – announced the screening on Facebook.
On Tuesday, the Jawaharlal Nehru University students’ union could not hold a proposed screening of the documentary — “India: The Modi Question” — because the lights suddenly went off in the union office.
Students said the varsity’s administration was behind the outage, and that they had also snapped the office’s internet connection.
They, however, watched the documentary on their mobile phones and other devices.
A JNU administration official later told news agency PTI: “There is a major (power) line fault at the university. We are looking into it. The engineering department is saying it will be resolved at the earliest.”
Students, who had gathered outside the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) office for the screening, also claimed that stones were thrown at them when they were watching the documentary on their phones.
However, a senior police officer said that no such incident was reported to the cops.
The government on Friday had directed social media platforms Twitter and YouTube to block all links to the documentary. The Ministry of External Affairs called the documentary a “propaganda piece”.
The two-part documentary claims it investigated certain aspects related to the 2002 Gujarat riots when Modi was the chief minister. The documentary has not been screened in India.
On Sunday, a section of students at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) had successfully screened the BBC documentary on campus.
The documentary was screened under the banner “Fraternity Movement — HCU Unit” on the campus of UoH, also known as the Hyderabad Central University (HCU).
Also read: Stones pelted, power cut off – JNU mayhem as students watch controversial BBC documentary on Modi