Support for Gurmehar grows; PU clash in focus

CHANDIGARH : An army veterans’ organisation head in Punjab offered to fight a legal battle on behalf of Gurmehar Kaur, the daughter of an army martyr, who started a social media campaign against the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The mother of the 20-year-old Delhi University student, whose stand against ABVP drew threats on Facebook and Twitter, however, refused to be drawn into the controversy. When contacted, Rajvinder Kaur said, “I do not want this controversy to go on.”

Punjab State Ex-Servicemen Welfare Association (Sewa) president Col (retd) Kuldip Singh Grewal vowed to fight a legal battle for Gurmehar. “Her opinion should be respected,” he said. “No one should remain unaffected when a daughter is threatened with rape,” Col (retd) Tejinder Singh Bajwa, a member of the association, said.

At Dhuri in Sangrur, Aam Aadmi Party MP Bhagwant Mann also extended support to Gurmehar and alleged that the BJP and its student affiliate ABVP are “spreading saffronisation in educational institutions”. “I oppose ABVP’s actions at DU and also at Panjab University in Chandigarh.” He was referring to a clash of the ABVP with the group Students for Society at PU on Monday. In Hoshiarpur, Dal Khalsa’s youth wing, Sikh Youth of Punjab, blamed the RSS and its ABVP for intolerance. Its president Paramjit Singh Tanda said, “Ever since the Modi government has come to power, ABVP activists have become more highheaded. After creating trouble in Ramjas College in Delhi, they perpetrated violence in Panjab University, Chandigarh.”