By IANS,
Bhopal : The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Madhya Pradesh Tuesday criticised a report of the Khandwa district collector on the alleged assault against a college professor by its members and demanded a high level enquiry into the incident.
Khandwa district collector D.D. Agrawal had submitted a report to the state assembly, demanding action on the March 3 incidents inside the Bhagwant Rao Agriculture College in Khandwa when ABVP cadres, including a girl student, thrashed a professor, Ashok Kumar Choudhary, and painted his face black.
The attack shocked another professor S.S. Thakur, who was present there. He went on leave and later died following a heart attack at his home.
The ABVP students alleged that Choudhary had an illicit affair with a girl student staying in the college hostel.
Vishnudatt Sharma, the regional organisational secretary of ABVP’s central India unit, Tuesday said the collector’s report was baseless and demanded a high-level probe into the incident.
“The collector has demanded action against ABVP cadres. In fact, his character should also be inquired into when he was posted in Bhopal. There are several complaints pending against him,” said the leader of ABVP, the students’ wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the ruling party in Madhya Pradesh.
Khandwa police have named three students in the case. However, the collector in his report said there are more accused to be identified as shown in the video clips and pictures of the incident.
The ABVP was involved in a similar case five years ago when H.S. Sabharwal, professor in Ujjain’s Madhav College, died following an assault by its activists. Sabharwal was attacked when he tried to stop irregularities during the students union election in the college.
Several ABVP leaders were arrested, but were later acquitted because of lack of evidence.
In 2007 a government teacher in Tikamgarh was thrashed by suspected ABVP activists in front of his three daughters.
The culprits were not caught. Instead, the teacher was transferred out of the district by the BJP government in the state.