ABVP derides 'anti-nationalism' in JU, threatens to chop Leftists' legs

Kolkata: Deriding left-leaning students for turning Jadavpur University into a "hub of anti-national activities", the RSS students' wing ABVP on Monday took out a protest rally outside the varsity. Addressing the rally, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishads' (ABVP) West Bengal secretary Subir Halder threatened to "chop off" the legs of Leftist students. "The leftists have turned the university into a den of anti-national activities. We will not allow these antinational activities here. These Leftists, if they dare to venture out of the university, we will chop off their legs," he said. Carrying the Indian tricolour and shouting slogans, ABVP and BJP activists took out the rally from Gol Park till the Jadavpur police station. Halder also said the ABVP will be staging protest rallies across the state against "growing antinationalism in educational institutions". With the rally coming days after the screening of Vivek Agnihotri's controversial "Buddha in a Traffic Jam" triggered clashes and caused tension in the campus on Friday, police took no chances and fortified the varsity putting up barricades at the entrances. There was also scuffle between the protestors and police after they tried to break the barricades and enter the university. Police declared the assembly to be unlawful and repeatedly urged the protestors to go back and not to break the barricades. A section of students and faculty members also staged demonstration inside the campus against the ABVP's bid to "saffronise" the varsity. "We have seen how in the name of screening a movie the ABVP activists indulged in molesting students. We all have gathered here to resists their evil designs. We are here to resist the fascist outfits like the ABVP and the BJP," said one of the varsity students. "We have joined our students to prevent any kind of untoward incident like it happened on Friday," said a faculty member. On Saturday, a section of varsity students, led by the Left-backed Faculty of Engineering and Technology Students' Union (FETSU), took out a protest march demanding arrest of ABVP supporters and a campus free of "BJP-RSS-ABVP terror". Besides Governor K.N. Tripathi seeking a report from Vice Chancellor Suranjan Das over the issue of the clashes and commotion over an open-air screening of Agnihotri's film on Friday, the varsity authorities have lodged a police complaint against outsiders, including three ABVP activists, for allegedly molesting female students during the event.