KASARGOD: Bekal police have suo motu booked 25 students of the Central University of Kerala (CUK) for allegedly disrupting a session of a national seminar marking the 150th anniversary of Vande Mataram.
On the second day of the seminar on Wednesday, the students entered the venue shortly after Kerala Governor Rajendra Arlekar delivered his valedictory address and disrupted a session by university Chief Proctor and Linguistics professor P Sreekumar. They raised slogans against the RSS and allegedly showed footwear while protesting.
Police booked the students under BNS Sections 189(2), 189(3), 191(2), 223 and 190 for unlawful assembly and rioting. The case was registered suo motu, without any complaint from the university or seminar organisers, Sahitya Akademi. The FIR was registered on Wednesday night based on a complaint filed by Circle Inspector Ajith Kumar.
According to the FIR, the Circle Inspector received information that students belonging to various organisations had formed an unlawful assembly and were disrupting Sreekumar’s presentation, with a possibility of him being assaulted. When he entered the hall with three police personnel, he found around 25 students below the stage raising slogans and showing footwear, creating a commotion and demanding that Sreekumar stop his presentation.
Despite repeated warnings to return to their seats and stop disrupting the session, the students refused to disperse and moved towards the stage. They also refused to comply with police orders, following which the police removed them from the venue, the FIR stated.
Sreekumar did not continue his session, but the seminar continued thereafter.
The students said they disrupted Sreekumar’s session because, as the university’s Chief Proctor, he had not registered his protest with the Governor over what they described as his remarks wrongly labelling their protest against RSS ideologues at the seminar as opposition to Vande Mataram. The students alleged that Sreekumar and other faculty members remained silent.
The CPM’s Student Federation of India (SFI) on Wednesday evening issued a clarification that the student unions’ protest was not against the seminar but against the RSS.
In his valedictory address, Arlekar took a dig at the student organisations that had staged a protest against the RSS on the previous day of the seminar, stating that opposition to Vande Mataram should be dealt with.
“Not only we have to find out who are behind these protests and act on them,” he told the gathering.
His address apparently triggered protests by students on the second day of the seminar as well.
CUK authorities are yet to take any disciplinary action against the members of the student organisations who staged the protest.
