As tension continued to grip the prestigious Benares Hindu University (BHU) where girl students were allegedly beaten up by the police late in the night last Saturday, criticism mounted against Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath for his “misgovernance and apathy”.
Adityanath left the state capital for his almost weekly tour to his constituency Gorakhpur while opposition leader and former Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav and state Congress Chief Raj Babbar heaped scorn at his administration’s “inept” handling of the students unrest in the University.
“Mahamana ke vishwavidyalaya me nari shakti par julm. Betiyon par lathi aur farzi mukadme (In Madan Mohan Malviya’s university, women are facing oppression. Fake cases and batons have been unleashed on our daughters),” tweeted Akhilesh Yadav.
“Beti Bachao (Save our daughters) is, in reality, Beti Pitwao (Thrash our daughters) for the BJP,” said state Congress chief Raj Babbar.
Meanwhile, the Vice Chancellor of the University, Girish Chandra Tripathi who was in Delhi for the executive council meeting, said the violence was fanned by “rumour mongering” and “outsiders”. He claimed the council’s meeting was scheduled long back and the violence did not figure on its agenda.
He also brushed aside allegations of gender bias in the central university, suggesting the perception may have to do with the fact that authorities were “more concerned” about the security of women than men.
Tripathi said he had been keeping Union HRD Minister Prakash Javadekar updated on the issue from the very beginning. “We have the footage in which outsiders can be clearly seen at the protest. Rumour mongering escalated the protests. Rumours were spread that girls have been asked to vacate the hostels and those who were not involved in the protests also joined it,” he said.
However, a report by the Varanasi Divisional Commissioner Nitin Gokarn reportedly blames the BHU administration for the violence. Gokarn has, in the report sent to Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar, said that the BHU did not deal sensitively with the complaint of a girl student who had said that she had been molested on the University campus.
The complaint of the student had followed a protest by other female students outside the Vice Chancellor’s office on the night of September 23rd. The protesting students got into a heated argument with the security personnel when they tried to stop them. As news spread, other students joined the protestors and the agitation turned violent. The police were called into the campus and the students were allegedly beaten up.
The incident has snowballed into a major controversy with student organisations, including the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) staging demonstrations in the capital against police action on students. The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Tuesday issued notices to the Chief Secretary, DGP (UP) and BHU VC asking for a detailed report on “unwarranted manhandling and thrashing of agitating students, mostly women, by UP police”.
Scores of academics, activists and others lodged their protest and asked for action against the Vice Chancellor among other demands. In a statement here, activists and academics including Aruna Roy, Nikhil Dey of Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, Prof. Satish Deshpande of Delhi University, Dr Mary E. John of the Centre for Women Studies, Dr Brinda Bose of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) among others condemned police action inside a university campus.
“This is a complete failure of the VC of the University to protect students and their rights to free speech. The administration has miserably failed to respond institutionally to an incident as grave as sexual harassment. Instead, it has responded by unleashing violence on peaceful and non-violent protestors and choosing to crush the constitutional rights of students of free speech and expression,” said letter written by these activists and academics to the President Ramnath Kovind.
The UP Government, on its part, has instituted a magisterial inquiry into the incident.