One day after a video of BJP members heckling college students in Bengaluru surfaced, Deputy Chief Minister CN Ashwath Narayan on Thursday, 9 January, criticised the women for questioning the ‘law of the land’.
“When BJP workers are creating awareness about the law of the land, who are these people to question all of a sudden? Who gave them the right? ” he told reporters.
Several students held a silent protest outside JNC in Koramangala with anti-CAA banners after women students of Jyoti Nivas College (JNC) were heckled by BJP workers over a pro-CAA banner that had been put up on the college wall on Wednesday.
Approximately 70 students were a part of the protest that did not have the college administration’s sanction. Several students The Quint spoke to said that they were angry about their college’s silence on Thursday’s incident and also expressed the need for a space where they could register their grievances.
Students say that the college has declared a two-day holiday to evade media glare and discourage students from meeting and filing FIRs against the BJP workers.
After a brief argument with the cops over their peaceful protest, the students were moved from the spot. They were finally allowed to stand outside the college, under heavy police cover, with permission. Students from other colleges also participated in the demonstration.
Students said that they had been ordered to not speak to the media and that any student caught doing so would attract disciplinary action.
“I heard that they asked girls to go back to Pakistan. They have no right to say that or use those words. If we don’t stop them now, then we can’t do anything later. Without knowing if we are pro-CAA or not, how can they put the poster outside a girls’ college?” one protester said.
A student, who was present when the altercation took place on Wednesday, said, “We told them to take the banners down and then the person began speaking to us in a very rude manner. We held up a small paper saying we oppose CAA, and that’s when they started screaming at us that we should ‘go back to Pakistan’. Why should we? We were born and raised here.”
Another student said that they were called ‘uneducated’, ‘illiterate’ and ‘anti-national’ simply for disagreeing with BJP members.
The banner was taken down by some members of the BJP only after the cops came to the spot.
“Police didn’t do much. First, they were trying to shoo us away, when clearly it was the BJP workers who were breaking the law. They wanted to remove us from the spot. Before taking the poster down, they chanted Bharat Mata ki Jai.”JNC student
‘College Asked Us Not to Protest’
After the women went back inside the college, they were allowed to gather peacefully for a short while. Student representatives had been in talks with the administration to allow them to protest.
“We wanted to take a stand, but the college administration was not supporting us at all. They said it will only aggravate things if we protest. We didn’t want to take a stand for or against CAA but we wanted to voice our disappointment. They finally allowed us to sit silently inside the college itself, where nobody could see us. They also told what we can put on the placard and what we can’t. It was supposed to last for an hour, but they made us get up before that,” said another student.
She also said that they took away their placards and asked them to not interact with media persons without taking permission from the principal, which caused a small altercation between the students and the professors.
Chaos ensued for a brief period at the JNC campus when a horde of young men came charging towards the college, apparently to protest the heckling of female students over CAA, but were forced away by the police who were present. They shouted anti-BJP and anti-CAA slogans for a short while before dispersing.
‘Who Are Students to Question BJP Workers?’: Deputy CM
Meanwhile, former chief minister and Congress leader Siddaramaiah, tweeted that CM Yediyurappa should control his ‘hooligans’.
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