A college run by the Jain community in Baghpat district of western Uttar Pradesh has accused the Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of threatening to demolish a temple and an idol of a Jain goddess on the premises.
While the ABVP later issued an apology for the misconduct and alleged attempts to vandalise by its activists, blaming it on ignorance, an FIR was lodged against four persons, at least two of them members of the outfit, on charges of rioting, criminal intimidation and intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace. The college administration, however, expressed dissatisfaction at the sections invoked in the FIR and demanded nothing less than the arrest of the accused persons.
D.K. Jain, joint secretary of Digambar Jain College, said that on Tuesday around 25-30 persons, including girl students and outsiders, many of them wearing saffron scarves, barged into the campus and attempted to vandalise goddess Shrutdevi’s idol, the Jain goddess of knowledge.
The college authorities said the mob locked the college gates and staged a dharna in front of the idol, which was installed in 2016 in presence of Governor Ram Naik during the centenary year of the institution, and tried to vandalise the property. They demanded the removal of the idol.
The ABVP later apologised to the Digambar Jain community for the incident.
An FIR was lodged against four students and one unidentified person under IPC Sections 147, 504 and 506. The accused were identified as Akshay Kumar, Yachika Tomar, Ankur Chaudhary and Happy Sharma.
Mr. Kumar is a third-semester M.A English student, as per the FIR lodged on the complaint of Principal Virendra Singh. In the police complaint, Mr. Singh said there were 10 students and other anti-social elements along with the four named accused who barged into the college.
Baraut police station SHO Ajay Kumar Sharma, however, said no arrests were made in the case.
In the complaint, Dr. Virendra Singh said the activists raised indecent slogans in front of the temple. “We fear that these unruly students and others [outsiders] involved with them can cause harm to the temple and statue of Ma Shrutdevi, the symbol of faith of Jain devotees,” he stated.
‘Ignorance’
The ABVP said the incident happened out of ignorance and without the knowledge of its senior members. “Even then, the ABVP does not have even a shred of support for such an incident,” it said on Twitter.
“We consider the campus to be our temple of education and have a reverence for all panths and traditions. Therefore, the ABVP apologises to the entire society for the mistake of some workers of Baghpat,” it stated.
Amit Rai Jain, a Jain historian who attended a meeting of Jain groups and intellectuals concerned over the incident, said the activists climbed on to the idol of Shrutdevi with their footwear and breached its dignity.
“They threatened to demolish the temple and issued an ultimatum saying that if the idol and the temple of Shrutdevi are not removed in seven days, they will demolish them,” Mr. Jain told reporters.
“This is highly condemnable. The Jain community is concerned. If idols of goddesses that are symbols of the Jain faith are insulted or questions raised on them within the campus of the Jain community, then the existence of the Jain religion and community will be under threat,” he remarked.
Baraut SHO said, “We called both sides, spoke to them and tried to understand [their views]. Students aligned to the ABVP thought the Shrutdevi idol was made after modifying an idol of Ma Saraswati. It was nothing. There was a confusion. We made them sit together and hold talks.”
Mr. Jain said police had lodged the case under Sections 147, 504 and 506 of the IPC only to complete “formality”. He said the ABVP members had “hurt [Jain religious] faith” through their inane act.
“They [police] have only tried to misguide us. Maybe the administration thinks we are totally illiterate,” said Mr. Jain, demanding that the accused students be arrested and also suspended from the ABVP.
The college administration said it would press the matter further and approach the minority commission.
A Twitter page in the name of ABVP Baghpat Official had posted pictures of the said incident with some persons wearing ABVP scarves staging a dharna in the college against the “contentious” idol. The tweet was deleted on Thursday.
Founded in 1916 by the Jain community, the college, which caters to around 3,000 students today, gained the status of a degree college in 1947 and was upgraded to postgraduate courses in the 1960s. It has the status of a minority institution, says its official website.
