Delhi University protests: As it happened

Gurmehar Kaur, daughter of Kargil martyr Captain Mandeep Singh, has backed out from participating in the protest march at Delhi University today.

Updated: March 1, 2017 1:32 PM IST

By Pragati Ratti Sharma

Delhi University protests: As it happened

New Delhi Feb 28: The All India Students’ Association will carry out a peaceful protest march at the Delhi University on Tuesday at 12.30 pm against the violence that played out at the Ramjas College last Wednesday. While Kargil martyr Captain Mandeep Singh’s daughter Gurmehar Kaur has pulled out of the campaign, she has asked others to join the protest march in huge numbers. Security has been tightened at the Delhi University ahead of the protests. Here are Live updates on the protests:

5:05 pm: Revered lyricist Javed Akhtar lambasted cricketer Virendra Sehwag and wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt for trolling Gurmehar Kaur. “If a hardly literate player or a wrestler troll a pacifist daughter of a martyr its understandable but whats wrong with some educated folks,” he said.

4:38 pm: NHRC sent a notice to Delhi Police earlier in the day, seeking action against ABVP members who have allegedly threatened rape assaults against protesting students.

4:06 pm: Left leader Sitaram Yechury while addressing the students present at the protest march at Delhi University said, “Our nationalism is ‘We are Indian’ not ‘who is a Hindu’. They cannot win this with their intellectual skill and so, they want to replace it with  violence.” CPI leader D Raja also addressed the protest march saying, “This is a collective fight to defend our constitutional rights. We will be raising the issue of DU in Parliament.”

4:01 pm: ABVP National Media Convener Saket Bahuguna has said that they have filed a complaint with the Delhi Police over reported threats given to Gurmehar Kaur. He said, “Since Gurmehar Kaur did not approach the police against the threats, we have filed a complaint. The police must find out who is threatening her online and the guilty must be caught.”

3:57 pm: The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad says that they had objected only to Umar Khalid’s participation at the literary event at Ramjas College. The ABVP claims that the AISA and SFI are funded by maoists and terrorists and that is why they do not speak out against them.

3:43 pm: Left leaders D Raja and Sitrama Yechury have also joined the protest march at the Delhi University. Meanwhile, Gurmehar Kaur has tweeted that she wished she was there. “2000 people in SOLIDARITY! All my friends. Our lovely faculty! how I wish I was there *GRINNING* (sic),” Gurmehar Kaur has tweeted.

3:37 pm: ABVP National Media Convener Saket Bahuguna addresses the media. “Those at the protest march today are not from DU, but are outsiders. Also, I want to say to the teachers who have joined the protest that they are affecting the studies of students. All classes have been halted,” Bahuguna said. DUSU VP and ABVP member Priyanka Chhawri added that last Wednesday it was the students of Ramjas who molested the ABVP girls and not the other way round. She also announced another protest march on March 2.

3:29 pm: Protests are also being held at the Aligarh Muslim University against the violence that played out at Ramjas College last week.

3:07 pm: Former JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested last year for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans, has joined protests at the Delhi University. Former JNUSU vice president Shehla Rashid has also joined the protests.

2:58 pm: The Phogat sisters have also come out against Gurmehar Kaur saying she shouldn’t have said that Pakistan did not kill her father. “Gurmehar Kaur’s view that her father was killed by war and not Pakistan was wrong for me. It’s against our nation and martyrs,” said wrestler Babita Phogat. Her sister and wrestler Gita Phogat said, “If you speak against the nation, people will obviously not like it. Irrespective of gender, the person won’t be spared.”

2:36 pm: FTII Chairman Gajendra Chauhan has said that Gurmehar Kaur should admit that she made a mistake by saying that her father was not killed by Pakistan and must apologise. Speaking to India Today, Chauhan said that Gurmehar Kaur was being influenced by people and that she was being driven by anti-national voices.

1:35 pm: Ravi Kaushal of India.com spoke to Ritu Yusha Tiwari, a professor at the Shaheed Bhagat Singh College, at the Delhi University protest site. Professor Tiwari says, “We have joined this protest because the universities must be protected from assault on freedom of expression is exercised and we must protect universities from the assault,”

1:28 pm: Students from the Delhi University as well as the Jawaharlal Nehru University are protesting against the ABVP and shouting slogans for free speech.  Meanwhile, Gurmehar Kaur’s grandfather Kanwaljeet Singh has said that he is saddened by the turn of events. Speaking to India Today, Singh said, “I fear for my granddaughter’s safety. My son laid his life for the country. Even that time, it was the BJP government in power, what did he get, what did our family get? Now what will they do? Will they kill Gurmehar? What will they achieve out of it?”

1:09 pm: Ravi Kaushal of India.com is at Delhi University covering the protests. He says students are chanting slogans – ‘Lathi, Patthar, Khoon nahi, hum chahte vaad vivad ki azaadi (Not lathis, stones and blood, we want freedom for exchange of ideas)’. They are also shouting slogans, ‘ABVP Murdabad’

12:41 pm: Students of Miranda House have joined protests against the Ramjas College violence and are shouting slogans against the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). “We are not afraid of the ABVP,” says one of the students.

12:35 pm: After cricketer Virender Sehwag and actor Randeep Hooda, now Olympian Wrestler Yogeshwar Dutt has tweeted against Delhi University student Gurmehar Kaur, comparing her with Osama bin Laden, Salman Khan and more. Here’s his tweet:

12:30 pm: The members of National Students’ Union of India’s (NSUI) stage hunger strike outside Delhi University Arts faculty.

12:04 pm: The Delhi Police have filed FIR on the alleged “rape threats” to Gurmehar Kaur.

11:59 am: Kanhaiya Kumar of the infamous JNU controversy lashes out at ABVP for disrupting the Ramjas seminar and creating chaos in the university.

11:52 am: Trolled Gurmehar Kaur withdraws from the campaign, leaves Delhi amid chaos in DU.

11:08 am: The Congress-backed National Students’ Union of India has begun a hunger strike at the Delhi University, according to reports. This strike will be followed by a ‘mashaal march’ later in the day.

10:50 am: Students are expected to gather at the Delhi University for the protests for free speech around 11 am. DU student Gurmehar Kaur had asked people to join the protest on Tuesday at Khalsa College. However, she has herself withdrawn from the protest on Tuesday morning even as she has asked others to join the protest.

10:20 am: Security has been tightened outside Delhi University’s Arts Faculty ahead of scheduled protest march by students and teachers of DU and Jawaharlal Nehru University.

The activists of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the student body affiliated with Bharatiya Janta Party, were allegedly involved in the violence that played out at the Ramjas College last week. It all began when Umar Khalid, who was accused of shouting anti-India slogans at the Jawahar Lal Nehru University last year, and Shehla Rasheed, a former office bearer of JNU Students Union, were invited to speak at a literary event organised by the Department of English at the Ramjas College last week. The event was cancelled after protests by the ABVP. The participants of the event alleged that they were locked in the seminar room and bricks and stones were hurled on the room. After the intervention of police, they were escorted safely.

Several teachers including Prashant Chakravarty of the Ramjas college were reportedly injured in the violence. Following this, DUTA had condemned the violence saying, “DUTA holds the University Administration squarely responsible for this unfortunate occurrence and feels that it has repeatedly refused to take action against the same student group that assaulted a teacher in SRCC in June 2016 and attacked and harassed the Dean of the Faculty of Law in November and December 2016. Allowing mobsters and anti-social elements to get away with impunity has emboldened them and the DUTA office-bearers were themselves at the receiving end of their physical aggression in Daulat Ram College in July 2016.”

Gurmehar Kaur, a student of the Lady Sri Ram College, became the face of the campaign against the violence at Ramjas when she took to Facebook and posted an image of her holding a placard that read, “I am a student of Delhi University. I am not afraid of ABVP. I am not alone. Every student of India is with me.” In her subsequent post, Gurmehar revealed that she is the daughter of a Kargil martyr. Following this, she alleged that she was receiving rape threats and filed a complaint with the Delhi Commission for Women on Monday.

Earlier this year, Kaur had also posted a video and one of the placards of her video had said, “Pakistan did not kill my dad. War did.” Kaur was trolled on Twitter over the video as cricketer Virender Sehwag took to Twitter and posted an image of himself holding a placard saying, “I did not score two triple centuries, my bat did.” Sehwag was backed by actor Randeep Hooda, who later clarified that he was just appreciating the cricketer’s quick wit. Kaur was also compared with Dawood Ibrahim by BJP MP Pratap Simha.

Gurmehar Kaur has now withdrawn from the protest march saying, “I’m withdrawing from the campaign. Congratulations everyone. I request to be left alone. I said what I had to say. I have been through a lot and this is all my 20 year self could take :). The campaign is about students and not about me. Please go to the March in huge numbers. Best of luck. To anyone questioning my courage and bravery.. I’ve shown more than enough. One thing is for sure, next time we will think twice before resorting to violence or threats and that’s all this was about.”

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