India: ABVP men disrupt seminar on Muzaffarnagar riot at DU [Delhi University]

India Tomorrow, Jan 22, 2014

22 Jan 2014 05:01 PM, IST

ABVP members disrupt seminar on Muzaffarnagar riot at DU
ABVP members arguing with policemen outside the venue of the program at Delhi University

By India Tomorrow Staff Reporter

Dozens of members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) on Wednesday tried to disrupt a program organized by some academicians on the issue of Muzaffarnagar riots at Delhi School of Economics. The activists also shouted at speakers and chased some Kashmiri girl students who were attending the program. "As soon as I started speaking they shouted slogans and tried to disturb the program," Ish Mishra, professor of Political Science at Hindu College of Delhi University, told India Tomorrow. "I asked them to sit down and offered that I am ready to answer all their questions after the meeting is over but they did not agree and started shouting," Mishra added.

ABVP is a student wing of Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh, the parent body of Bharatiya Janata Party. A team of independent academics and a journalist carried out an inquiry into the communal violence that shook Muzaffarnagar district in Uttar Pradesh in September 2013. The team visited the affected villages in Dec and made public their report earlier this month. Today the team conducted the seminar titled 'Emergence of Hindu Fascist and the Pogrom in Muzaffarnagar' where they presented their findings.

Ish Mishra was one of the members of the team that conducted the inquiry. Other members were Dr. Mohan Rao, Professor, Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health, Jawaharlal Nehru University, Dr. Vikas Bajpai, Ph.D. Scholar, Centre for Social Medicine and Community Health, JNU and Ms. Pragya Singh, Journalist, Outlook magazine. "Police reached the venue at the Delhi University after some time but they were not doing their job properly," Mishra alleged.

The activists also shouted slogans at some Kashmiri girl students who were attending the program and chased them away," he further alleged. Mishra said that people of ABVP and other 'fascist' organizations are frustrated. "They are ideologically bankrupt since the beginning and now they are nervous and frustrated, they don't have any program and policy to pursue," he said. This is not first time when such things happened. In February 2012 ABVP tried to disturb a program on screening of a movie on Kashmir at Delhi School of Economics.

http://www.indiatomorrow.net/eng/abvp-members-disrupt-seminar-on-muzaffarnagar-riot-at-du