BENGALURU: Hundreds of students staged a protest at Azim Premji University (APU) on Thursday against the university administration for filing a complaint and leading to the registration of an FIR against the Spark Reading Circle for organising an event on Kunan Poshpora incident of 1991 without seeking permission from the college authorities.
The students not only demanded revocation of the FIR, but said that they were booked for offences under Section 299 of Bharathiya Nagarika Sanhita (BNS) and Section 67 under IT Act 2008, alleging hurting of religious sentiments and sharing of obscene material electronically.
The complaint was filed by Registrar of the University, Rishikesh BS. The FIR copy available with TNIE, stated, “There is no relation between APU and Spark Reading Circle. They have created an Instagram page, SPARK Reading Circle APU where they posted an invite for discussion around Kunan Poshpora 1991 event. Earlier to this event, the same Instagram page has spread fake news of APU, bringing disrespect and defaming the university by misusing the name. Therefore it is important to trace those who have started the page and take legal action against them.”
A post-graduate student speaking on condition of anonymity, said, “The student body in APU has condemned the act of the university for filing complaint against students. This could have been addressed internally and warned students for not taking permission to conduct these events.”
The student said, “After the ABVP incident, there was no event conducted in the campus to discuss the Kunan Poshpora event 1991. The students only raised slogans against ABVP at around 8.30 pm in the university campus. We also have received an email from the college administration informing us not to involve or speak to the media. Security was beefed up in the university campus. We have also met the Registrar and the faculty members asking them to revoke the FIR and drop the charges against SPARK Reading Circle as well as students, who were present during this incident.”
An APU spokesperson said, “There is no such students’ group called SPARK Reading Circle that has registered with the University. The University has processes to engage with students directly in these kinds of matters and we will continue to do so.”