CHANDIGARH: The Punjab and Haryana High Court is likely to hear on Wednesday a Public Interest Litigation (PIL) seeking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the recent violence, arson and vandalism at Lovely Professional University (LPU) in Phagwara, near Jalandhar.
The PIL, filed by an LPU student, seeks a direction for a CBI investigation into the violence. The petitioner has pointed out that the varsity's founder and chancellor, Dr Ashok Kumar Mittal, is a sitting Rajya Sabha MP from Punjab. He left the Aam Aadmi Party, which governs the state, and joined the Bharatiya Janata Party in April 2026, with the Assembly elections due in early 2027.
Senior Advocate Gaurav Chopra, appearing along with advocate Arjun Sheoran, sought urgent listing of the petition before a division bench comprising Chief Justice Ashwani Kumar Mishra and Justice Rohit Kapoor. He told the bench that incidents of rioting, arson and looting had taken place at the university.
The petition alleges that large-scale damage was caused to property during the violence, with reports of shops being vandalised and incidents of looting and arson. The petitioner has sought a CBI probe to ensure an independent investigation into the circumstances surrounding the violence.
“On the strength of that post and WhatsApp messages, about 2,000 students gathered outside hostel GH-3. At about 2 am, a section of them blocked National Highway-44 between Phagwara and Jalandhar. Through the night and into the next morning, students and outsiders set several buildings on fire, broke doors, glass and turnstile gates, entered buildings and looted goods and materials, and attacked the staff who tried to calm them. The violence has not stopped since,” the petitioner submitted.
The petitioner added that he had reliably learnt that a large number of outsiders, including men and women, mostly in their 30s, arrived on the campus. Some of them were in “open cars and other vehicles”. They were allegedly carrying walkie-talkies and brandishing swords, rods, guns and sickles, with their faces covered to conceal their identities.
“Some hosteller students of LPU and some LPU students staying in PG accommodations outside the university campus were also involved in this entire violent incident, but the majority of them were outsiders,” the petitioner submitted.
He added that these were clear indications that the protest was not spontaneous but a well-planned and organised attack controlled by some people or an organisation in the background, who had malafide intentions to defame the university and, especially, to disturb the atmosphere in the state.
“Only a night earlier, similar claims that two girl students had gone missing or had died by suicide set off violence at Chitkara University, Rajpura, where the university and the police stated that no such incident had occurred. Such incidents of violence hurt the students of the university more than anyone else and, moreover, created an environment of terrorism in the university,” the plea added.
The petitioner contended that the police had information about the gathering at around 1.45 am. Yet, the blockade, arson and looting continued for hours, and no arrests were made in connection with the vandalism.
The police authorities had also given conflicting accounts of the allegations, the petitioner claimed. The Deputy Inspector-General of Police (DIG), in his statement to the media, had clearly said that all allegations of rape and suicide were rumours. Even the Kapurthala SSP had called the alleged incident a “rumour”.
“Yet, later the same day, the police registered an FIR No. 162 dated September 27 against unnamed accused under Section 64 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023, alleging the rape of an unnamed and unidentified girl victim at hostel GH-3 without any evidence and verification,” he added.