lleging that it hurt their religious sentiments, the right wing students’ organisation Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad disrupted the screening of a documentary based on the Muzaffarnagar riots at a Delhi University college on Saturday.
The screening of the movie was reported to the ABVP-controlled students’ union by some members among the audience, after which it was stopped.
The incident was reported to have taken place at 2.45 p.m. while the film was being screened for about 100 students.
“Two to three students who were part of the audience walked out 10 minutes into the film and called the ABVP men. Several ABVP activists then stormed inside and forcibly stopped the screening,” said Nakul Singh Sawhney, director of the documentary titled Muzaffarnagar Baaqi Hai.
Although, it was alleged that senior faculty member Keval Arora was threatened to be slapped by some of the activists, no reports of violence were reported to the police, who were summoned to the spot.
“Neither of the parties has come forward to register a complaint,” said Madhur Verma, DCP (North).
The ABVP, meanwhile, said that it will not tolerate film screenings or any other activity that may be derogatory towards Hinduism and contains elements of anti-nationalism.
“Some students from the college asked the film society to stop screening the movie as it contained derogatory statements about certain castes like Jats and Gujjars. When the teachers did not listen to them, they came to us. By the time we reached the college, they had heard we were coming and stopped the screening,” said ABVP national secretary Rohit Chahal.
“We were so shocked that there was no permission taken for screening a film on such a controversial subject. The principal did not even know about it,” he said, adding that some of the students in the college were so offended that they wanted to file a police complaint.
It was ultimately decided that the film will have to be viewed by the principal and the ABVP on Monday before the film society is permitted to screen it.
We were shocked that permission was not taken for screening a film on a controversial subject
The ABVP has said that it will not tolerate film screenings or any other activity that may be derogatory towards Hinduism
