Police retorted to lathi charge to disperse the crowd.
By TCN News,
New Delhi: Hundreds of students, teachers and activists demonstrated outside Delhi University’s Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) in a joint protest organized by left wing students’ organisations as well as several Muslim students’ bodies against Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi lecture on development.
Members of Campus Front of India, Student Islamic Organization of India, and leftist students’ bodies like Democratic Students Union, AISF, AISA and various other students’ organizations participated in the protest. Several rights activists and sympathizers too registered their protest against Modi’s visit to campus.
“Modi’s achievement is the 2002 Gujarat Genocide and genocide is not development, Modi has no right to give speech on development” Said Campus Front of India member Mohammed Jabir.
Deepa Sharma a student of Hindu College told “Vibrant Gujarat is a myth like Shinning India Campaign of BJP. We students are against this campaign, a state where women and children are dying of anemia, Modi should not speak on development rather work for it”.
Wearing black clothes and masks of ghosts, students crossed the barricade and shouted slogans against Modi outside the college. Around 600 policemen, some of them in riot gear, tried to bring the situation under control. Police retorted to lathi charge and also used water cannons to disperse the crowd.
They allegedly also let Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members, who had gathered on the other side, beat some of the protesters.
Civil rights activist Mahtab Alam alleged, “Police used water cannon and lathi against us and lent all the support to Sanghi goons.”
Angry students shouted, “Modi go back!” Posters held up by protestors read: “Expose Modi!” Meanwhile, Akhil Bharaitya Vidyarthi Parishad members raised slogans in praise of Modi.
Shri Ram College of Commerce (SRCC) is the alma mater of many leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), including Arun Jaitley, Vijay Goel, Jagdish Mukhi and Vijay Jolly.
Modi’s talk at the college was about “Emerging business models in the global scenario”.
(With inputs from IANS)