B’deshi Student Asked to Leave India By MHA for Anti-CAA Protests

The ABVP had written a complaint regarding the student to the VC of Visva Bharati University, where she is enrolled.

A Bangladeshi student who is pursuing an undergraduate degree at West Bengal's Visva Bharati University was served a notice by the Foreigners' Regional Registration Office, under the Ministry Of Home Affairs (MHA), to leave the country within fifteen days, reportedly because she participated in anti-CAA protests.

(Photo: Aroop Mishra/The Quint)

A Bangladeshi student, pursuing an undergraduate degree at West Bengal’s Visva Bharati University, was served a notice by Foreigners’ Regional Registration Office, under Ministry of Home Affairs, asking her to leave the country in fifteen days, reportedly due to her participation in anti-CAA protests.

The notice mentions the student, Afsara Anika Meem, a first-year student of Design, “engaged in anti-government activities” which are a “breach of her visa”.

ABVP’s Complaint

As per the university’s students, the action against Afsara was prompted by a complaint filed to the authorities by members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of RSS.

Joint Secretary of ABVP, Visva Bharati Unit, Satkar Tripathi confirmed to The Quint that they had written to the vice chancellor on 23 January, complaining about Afsara’s ‘activities’.

The complaint letter regarding the student sent by the ABVP to the Visva Bharati Vice Chancellor.(Photo: Ishadrita Lahiri/The Quint)

The Quint accessed a copy of the aforementioned letter, which was stamped and received by the vice chancellor’s office. Further, the letter was copied to the prime minister, HRD Ministry, and Ministry of External Affairs.

“We had received a picture of her (Afsara) where she was holding an anti-CAA poster. We felt that it was wrong of an outsider to intervene in matters of India and thus brought this to the notice of the authorities”, Tripathi told The Quint.

The Quint has reached out to Visva Bharati’s authorities, asking them to whom the letter was forwarded, if at all.

We further attempted to reach out to Afsara but her friends said she is “not in the position to talk at the moment”.

Visva Bharati University was recently in the news, when BJP MP Swapan Dasgupta had been gheraoed by protesters when he’d gone there to deliver a speech.

A few weeks later, the campus had masked goons thrash students and vandalise property.

A few days post Republic Day, a student was evicted from the hostel for recording and sharing the vice chancellor’s speech, in which he purportedly spoke in favour of CAA while hoisting the Tricolour.