The attack on the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) by masked men on Sunday night triggered multiple and simultaneous protests in Kalaburagi on Monday.
Just as the news of masked men and women armed with rods, heavy sticks, stone and other weapons barging into JNU campus and indiscriminately beating up students and teachers came, a group of students from Gulbarga University and activists associated with various Left and progressive organisations gathered near a petrol pump in the city and staged a protest throughout the night. Leaders of various organisations, including K. Neela of Communist Party of India (Marxist), Maula Mulla of Communist Party of India and Nazeer Ali of Social Democratic Party of India, participated in the night-long agitation. In the morning, responding to a call given by All India Democratic Students Organisation, Campus Front of India and Students Federation of India, students and youths took out protest rallies and staged demonstrations outside the district administrative complex. The agitating students raised slogans.
“Peace-loving Indians could not sleep after watching the video clippings showing the brutalities of armed goons that emerged from the JNU campus. The police were not just mute spectators of the rampage and barbaric attack but they actively supported the attackers by offering security cover to them. It is clearly State-sponsored terrorism. The BJP government at the Centre is targeting universities that encourage rational thoughts and inculcate awareness among students,” Rajendra Rajwal, a leader of Karnataka Vidyarthi Sanghatane, said during one of the agitations.
The students of Gulbarga University and Central University of Karnataka also staged demonstrations outside the administrative complexes of their respective universities in the morning. Afternoon saw two more protests at Jagat Circle where hundreds of activists from different organisations participated. The activists disfigured posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah with black ink and burnt their effigies.
“Mr. Shah had said that he would teach a lesson to the ‘tukde tukde gang’ referring to JNU students who were agitating against fee hike, CAA [Citizenship (Amendment) Act] and NRC [National Register of Citizens]. Now, he has done it ‘by sending armed men’ to the JNU campus. Mr. Modi and Mr. Shah should step down immediately owning responsibility for the attack on JNU students. The Union government should ban all right wing organisations such as ABVP and Bajrang Dal that have been attacking innocent people and spreading hate and violence in the country,” K. Neela said during the agitation.
