Jawaharlal Nehru University’s student-activist Umar Khalid can still feel the burns of sedition charges against him as he was denied to speak at Delhi University’s Ramjas College on February 21. The members of Delhi University Student’s Union (DUSU) and Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) protested against Khalid.
Khalid was supposed to speak at the seminarorganisedd by Literary Society of Ramjas College on ‘The War in Adivasi Areas’. Umar posted a message on social site Facebook claiming that if he participates in the event, police would not be able to offer him protection. In his Facebook post he wrote, “Such is the state of democracy in our country where attackers are given complete protection and those facing attacks are held responsible for the attacks on them.”
Commenting on the event the Principal of Ramjas College, Rajendra Prasad, reportedly said that the event was cancelled after protests by students. Speaking to Indian Express, Debalin Roy, a student said, “Around 40-50 ABVP men stormed into the campus and started protested against Umar Khalid. The group soon turned abusive and assaulted us.”
Debalin further asserted that “the protesters turned violent and started throwing stones at us breaking the windows of the room and we were inside it.”
Umar Khalid was among the three students to be arrested on charges of sedition for organising an event on Afzal Guru in JNU in 2016.
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