Univs join hands, protests spill over on to Delhi streets
Thousands of students and teachers of all major universities in the Capital — Delhi University, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia — took to the streets on Tuesday to protest what they called “hooliganism” and violence unleashed by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists even as a female student who took on the RSS-affiliated students’ body pulled out of the campaign after getting death and rape threats. "I'm withdrawing from the campaign. Congratulations everyone. I request to be left alone. I said what I had to say," Gurmehar Kaur tweeted.
The police, meanwhile, have registered an FIR against “unknown people” under the IT ACT for trolling Gurmehar Kaur. Lt Governor of Delhi Anil Baijal promised "strict action" against those who attacked students and teachers inside the Delhi University campus.
Gurmehar Kaur, 20, from Lady Shri Ram College, said she was withdrawing from the campaign she ignited against the ABVP on social media and urged everyone to leave her alone. Kaur did not join the protest march on Tuesday but an estimated 2,000 students did, raising slogans like "ABVP Down Down", "ABVP Go Back" and "ABVP Don't be so Creepy".
“We are here to make the ABVP understand that DU stands together against violence,” Hindolee Datta, a student, told the media. Added Gurpreet, a student of Ambedkar University, “Our right to protest has been taken away by the ABVP and RSS. This is not just about Delhi University but the whole nation.”
Buoyed by the turnout at Tuesday’s protest, DU students have decided to take out another march from Mandi House to Parliament on March 4. Addressing the students, Swaraj Abhiyan leader Yogendra Yadav said, “We will learn our nationalism from Bhagat Singh and not from them whose forefathers never hoisted the national flag at their headquarters. Neither will we tolerate nor will we engage in violence. The protest is not about Left or Right but wrong and right.”—
Army veterans in Punjab have stepped forward to fight a legal battle on behalf of Gurmehar Kaur, the daughter of an army martyr, who started a social media campaign against the ABVP.
The mother of the 20-yearold Delhi University student, whose defiant stand against the ABVP drew a volley of hate messages on her Facebook account, however, refused to be drawn into the controversy over it.
When contacted, Rajvinder Kaur said, "No thanks... 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 on Gurmehar’s behalf "till the matter reaches its logical conclusion". "Her opinion should be respected as she has the right to raise her voice," he said.
"No one should remain unaffected when a daughter is threatened with rape. The people of the country should raise their voice to protect the daughter of a martyr," Col (retd) Tejinder Singh Bajwa, a member of the association, said.
Gurmehar's father Capt Mandeep Singh was commissioned in the 49 Army Air Defence Regiment in 1991 and was serving with the 4 Rashtriya Rifles battalion when he died fighting militants on August 6, 1999.
Brigadier (retd) Ashwini Kumar, former Commanding Officer of the 3 Rashtriya Rifles battalion, who was serving in the area when the attack on Capt Mandeep's company took place, said, "The Captain and his men fought against militants with great courage and they were given a befitting reply."
Mandeep's brother Davinderdeep Singh, a professor at a college in Nakodar at Jalandhar — Gulmehar's hometown, said his brother would have stood like a rock behind her.
"She is entitled to her opinion... she did not say anything anti-national," he said. Meanwhile, a number of ex-servicemen and representatives of various organisations condemned the rape threat to Gurmehar and appealed to the Delhi government to provide "proper security" to her. —PTI