Sedition row: Massive demonstration at AMU; AMUSU office-bearers, students stopped from reaching Delhi

A massive demonstration was staged by students at the Aligarh Muslim University on Friday to protest the sedition case slapped against 14 of university’s students by Uttar Pradesh Police.

The protest saw large-scale participation from both male and women students, amid a large presence of paramilitary forces on the campus.

On the same day, Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union (AMUSU) office bearers bound for New Delhi to address a press conference on the sedition charges slapped against 14 of the university students by Uttar Pradesh Police were detained by local cops as they were making their way to the Capital.

Humza Sufiyan, the students’ union vice-president and one of the 14 persons named in the sedition FIR, told National Herald that he and his associates were stopped by police at Tappal on the outskirts of Aligarh.

“They had erected barricades at Tappal, where they stopped and interrogated us in our car for almost an hour. The police told us that they had been asked by the authorities to prevent us from proceeding to Delhi,” said Sufiyan. He was travelling to the Capital with an AMUSU cabinet member, Ferdous Ahmed Barbhuiya, who has also been named in the FIR.

Barbhuiya alleged that he along with other AMUSU office-bearers being continuously monitored by the local police in the wake of the FIR that had been filed against them at behest of a Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM) district president Mukesh Lodhi on Feb 12.

The outgoing AMUSU president, Maskoor Ahmad Usmani, who was also on his way to Delhi to take part in the press conference at the Press Club of India, said that he was detained for two hours in the Lodha Police station on the outskirts of Aligarh.

“I was supposed to address a meeting on the university campus, before heading for Delhi. But I was detained for two hours by the local police,” Usmani told NH over the phone from Aligarh.

Usmani complains that the cops thoroughly searched and interrogated him, further claiming that he had been told by police that the instructions were coming from the district administration.

“They asked us the reason for going to Delhi. Thee even looked for weapons in my undergarments,” he says.

Even Usmani says that the objective of the police was to stop them from reaching Delhi.

The detention of former and current AMUSU office bearers by police on Friday was carried out despite the local police stating that there was “no evidence” of sedition against the students.

“After preliminary inquiry, no evidence was found to substantiate it,” Ashutosh Dwivedi, the superintendent of police (Aligarh city), told news website Scroll.in, adding that the charges “shall be dropped.”

A furore had erupted on the AMU campus on Feb 12 after a reporter from Republic TV, broadcasting from the campus, allegedly said on air that she was “standing in a university of terrorists,” provoking angry reactions from the students.

A confrontation between two groups of students ensured, the other allegedly led by right-wing student groups. The AMUSU office-bearers claim that the Republic TV crew was broadcasting from campus without permission and using incendiary lenaguage on air to deliberately provoke the students, a charge that Republic TV has denied.

Towards the end of the said dispute, BJYM district President Mukesh Lodhi claimed that his car was attacked by AMU students as he was leaving the campus, adding that even a bullet had hit his car.

“These students of AMU fired at me, but I escaped and the bullet struck my car. They raised slogans like Pakistan Zindabad and Bharat Murdabad. I and my friend Manoj Sharma were beaten up but we managed to escape,” Lodhi reportedly wrote in his FIR.

On his complaint, the police booked 14 AMU students for sedition and other relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).