The Left-controlled Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) on Sunday alleged that ABVP activists attacked some students after a candlelight march seeking justice for an IIT Bombay student who committed suicide.

The ABVP has denied the charge. The RSS-affiliated ABVP accused the Left-backed student outfits of “insulting” Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj.

The JNUSU said in a statement: “ABVP has once again resorted to attacking students.... This was done soon after a candlelight march in solidarity with the call by (IIT Bombay student) Darshan Solanki’s father.... ABVP does this once again to derail the movement against caste discrimination.”

Solanki, 18, who belonged to a Scheduled Caste community, allegedly committed suicide by jumping off the seventh floor of a hostel building, with her family alleging discrimination.

The ABVP denied the charge and accused the “Left group” of removing a garland from a picture of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and throwing it away at a programme the ABVP had organised on his birth anniversary.

“Immediately after the programme, the students of the Left group came there and removed the garland from the picture and threw it away,” the ABVP said in a statement.

Christians stage protest

Christians staged a daylong protest at Jantar Mantar Road in New Delhi on Sunday. Picture credit: United Christian Forum

Christians staged a daylong protest at Jantar Mantar Road in New Delhi on Sunday against mob attacks and police cases against members of the community.

The agitation in the wake of attacks on churches in Chhattisgarh in December was attended by bishops and religious heads of all major Catholic, Protestant and independent churches.

In a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu, the churches have demanded the setting up of redress commissions to address targeted violence against minorities as well as compensation to persons and institutions targeted for their religious identity, reconstruction of illegally demolished churches, and “closure of cases where false allegations have been levied against Christians, for instance in the case of Late Fr. Stan Swamy”.

Pheroze L Vincent