By Siddhant Mohan, TwoCircles.net
On Sunday evening, female students of Banaras Hindu University gathered to celebrate their last year’s protest demanding justice for a sexual assault victim.
The event held under the banner of “Outrage eve” was meant to celebrate the gender sensitivity and achievement, if any, the girls have registered in the course of this one year. But as always, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) disrupted the event by verbally abusing girls, passing sexist remarks, shouting vulgar slogans and manhandling many of the boys as well as girls.
On September 21 last year, a girl was sexually harassed in BHU campus, and to demand justice for the same, girls of the university sat on protest very next day which lasted until the night of September 23 when Police used violent force. The event on the Sunday was meant to celebrate the same protest.
The students organized a street-play at BHU’s famous Vishwanath Temple and also, one open mic event named “BOL” was organized at BHU’s main four-way. While the students reached the open mic venue, it was already highjacked by the students leaning towards ABVP.
Counter sloganeering started from ABVP when the girls tried to culturally address the open mic session by singing songs and reciting poetic verses of various writers.
Things soon went out of hand when ABVP goons started abusing girls. This act was accompanied with sexist remarks as well as slogans accusing the students as anti-nationals.
Soon, several boys were manhandled by ABVP while university’s security staff was standing as mute spectators. However, security staff acted after several event participants were already attacked by ABVP goons on the assumption that they were not the students of BHU.
While several students have suffered minor bruises and cuts, the girls have claimed to be stunned and humiliated with the use of violence by the students related to ABVP. An FIR has been filed at Lanka Police Station under sections 147, 354, 323, 504 and 506 of Indian Penal Code against ten named as well as a dozen of unnamed students related with ABVP.
The role of the university’s security staff is also questionable because it did not respond when the students from ABVP started disruption.
While the violence and subsequent crackdown was high, university’s proctorial board enclosed all the girls behind large metal door of Women’s College. But girls soon broke down the lock and came out and completed the Open mic event in the policing of university’s security staff.
Commenting on the issue, Tabassum Gayas, an undergraduate student from the university, said, “We had an assumption that our protest from last year has brought many changes inside the campus, but when you see these goons from ABVP, you can notice that they have not changed a bit. They are abusing us right in front of these security guards, but they are not doing anything but standing as mute spectators.”