At least 10 student activists, allegedly members of the Kerala Students Union (KSU) and the Students Federation of India (SFI), were injured in a clash between two groups on the campus of an Industrial Training Institute (ITI) in this north Kerala district on Wednesday, police said. The police resorted to lathi charges to control the situation.
The opposition Congress's student outfit, KSU, alleged that five of its activists were injured in the attack by SFI activists at the ITI in Thottada and that the injuries sustained by its unit president, C H Mohammed Ribi, are serious. He has been admitted to a private hospital in Kannur, they said.
The ruling CPI(M)'s student outfit SFI claimed that KSU activists, accompanied by outsiders, attacked and injured them. Five SFI activists are currently receiving treatment at various hospitals.
KSU activists alleged that SFI workers unleashed violence when they were about to file a complaint with the ITI principal regarding the vandalisation of a KSU flagpole and the assault of a student for following KSU's Instagram page.
They claimed that the campus has been witnessing disputes for days over the installation of a KSU flagpole. In response to the violence, ITI authorities have announced the indefinite closure of the institute.
The police said a case will be registered after recording the statements of the students injured in the incident.
Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly, V D Satheesan, visited the injured KSU activists at the hospital. He blamed the SFI for the violence on the campus.
"The approach that no organisation other than ours should operate is fascism," he said in a Facebook post.
KPCC president K Sudhakaran MP also accused the SFI of brutally assaulting KSU activists, terming it as barbaric.
In a statement, he demanded strict legal action against the students who carried out the attack.
(This report has been published as part of the auto-generated syndicate wire feed. Apart from the headline, no editing has been done in the copy by ABP Live.)