Permit for lit fest withdrawn after Kanhaiya’s event
LUCKNOW: The district administration has withdrawn permission for the Lucknow Literary Festival after former Jawaharlal Nehru Students’ Union( J NU S U) president Kan hai ya Kumar faced opposition on Friday from ABVP activists leading to unruly scenes at the event venue.
The three-day event at the Sheroes Hangout, a cafe run by acid attack victims in Gomti Nagar, witnessed chaos after Kanhaiya Kumar reached. He was here to discuss his book ‘Bihar to Tihar’, but was allegedly man handled by the ABVP activists.
After Kumar arrived at the venue on Friday, around a dozen ABVP activists raised slogans of ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ and demanded that the student leader must not be allowed to speak at the event. Their protest contin- uedf or around 45 minutes. Later, the police intervened and brought the situation under control .“Actor Divya Dutta was our guest for the first session last night. Thereafter, Kumar was to speak about his book... that is when about a dozen activists belonging to some organisations started creating disturbance,” news agency PT I quoted the literature festival organ is er Shamim Aarzo as saying.
“We tried to placate them... police were called in to bring the situation under control. Later, the session with actor-turnedpolitician S hat rug han Sin ha was taken up according to the schedule,” Aarzo added.
District magistrate Kaushal Raj S harm a said that the organisers had taken approval only for holding a book fair and had not apprised the administration about politicians delivery speech at the three-day event.