Chief minister Mamata Banerjee said she had asked police to arrest all those who raised the “goli maro… (shoot them)” slogan last Friday in the name of demanding justice for the death of a first-year student at Jadavpur University.
Supporters of the RSS students’ wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, had chanted the death threat, which was also heard ahead of the communal riots in Delhi in 2020, while holding a march to protest the death of the student.
“They are already saying ‘goli maro, goli chalao (shoot, open fire). They think this is Delhi, this is Uttar Pradesh. If you want to protest at Jadavpur, go ahead.... My grief knows no bounds (after the student’s death). Still I will say demand justice. But this is not the way to seek justice, by saying ‘shoot’. Let me see how far you can go,” the chief minister said in her address at the foundation day rally of the Trinamul Congress’s students’ wing.
“Shoot here if you dare.... I have already asked the police to arrest whoever shouted ‘goli maro’. Nobody has the right to shoot, do remember this.”
In the ABVP gathering, some of those present could be heard shouting at the top of their lungs: “Afzal (Afzal Guru) ke yaaron ko, goli maro… (Shoot the friends of Afzal).”
Afzal Guru was hanged for his role in the 2001 Parliament attack.
A Jadavpur University professor wondered on Monday why a gathering organised ostensibly to protest the death of a student would trigger such hatred.
“Teachers and students — present and past — are all doing their bit and holding marches to seek justice for the deceased student on and off the campus. Residents of the village the first-year student came from held a protest march on the campus. But in all these marches, we did not see any exhibition of hatred like what we saw in the ABVP rally,” the professor said.
“The slogan that was made popular by Union minister Anurag Thakur is being used randomly by ABVP supporters to spread hatred,” he said.
In January 2020, Thakur had led a BJP rally chanting “Desh ke gaddaron ko... (the country’s traitors)” and the the crowd responded with “... goli maaro saalon ko (shoot them down).”
Debanjan Paul, media-in-charge of the local ABVP, who was part of the Gol Park rally, repeated on Monday that there were many outsiders in their rally and they were not sure who raised the “goli maro...” slogan.
“As many as 67 of our supporters were arrested on Friday. None of them raised the slogan. All of them have secured bail,” he told Metro.
Paul said their supporters were slapped with Section 153A of the IPC (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony), among other charges.
It remains to be seen whether the police take any fresh action following the chief minister’s statement on Monday.
CM on VC
In her address on Monday, Mamata accused Bengal governor C.V. Ananda Bose of destabilising university campuses.
“The campuses are being destabilised. He is appointing his friends as VC.
An IPS officer who does not have any experience as a professor — 10 years of experience as professor is required (to be appointed as VC) — has been appointed as VC (of Aliah University).
At Jadavpur University, he has appointed the president of a BJP (teachers’) cell as VC. Is this some kind of a joke?” she said.
The governor is ex-officio chancellor of state-aided universities.
On August 12, he had appointed Buddhadeb Sau, state president of Jatiyotabadi Adhyapak and Gabeshak Sangh, a pro-RSS platform, as officiating VC of JU.
Asked by this newspaper about what the chief minister said, Sau declined to comment.
Union elections
The chief minister said campus elections would be held after the Puja vacation. “We have to make an amendment to the act. The polls will be held after Puja,” she said.
Student union elections were last held in the state in December 2019.