JNU students protest, seek judicial probe into violence

A delegation of The Jawaharlal Nehru Students’ Union was not given an audience by the vice-chancellor on Tuesday

JNU registrar Ravikesh had on Monday said the ruckus occurred after some students objected to a havan.: File photo

Pheroze L. Vincent   |   TT  |  New Delhi   |   13.04.22  : Protests rocked Jawaharlal Nehru University and Jamia Millia Islamia on Tuesday against the violence on the JNU campus allegedly over serving non-vegetarian food at a hostel mess on Ram Navami.

A delegation of The Jawaharlal Nehru Students’ Union (JNUSU) was not given an audience by the vice-chancellor on Tuesday.

The JNUSU had demanded a judicial probe, rescinding of a press note by the registrar in which he accused a group of students of objecting to a havan at Kaveri Hostel, and an end to “continuous violence by the ABVP on campus”.

Jamia Millia Islamia students staged a demonstration in solidarity with the JNUSU and against the wave of communal violence across India on Sunday.

Musaddiq Mubeen, president of the campus unit of the Students Islamic Organisation, said: “The attack on students in JNU by ABVP goons is extremely appalling and highlights the daylight thuggery and mobocracy that is becoming the norm across the country. The bloodshed unleashed in the name of vegetarian puritanism unmasks the violence, malice and bloodlust entrenched in it.”

The Left-led JNUSU has blamed the clash on the ABVP trying to enforce a meat ban at the university’s Kaveri Hostel on the day a puja had taken place, and shared videos of youths heckling mess secretary Raghib and poultry supplier Afzal Ahmed.

JNU registrar Ravikesh had on Monday said the ruckus occurred after some students objected to a havan. He said: “The wardens clarified on the spot and issued a notice when the ruckus was going on among students that there is no bar on serving non-vegetarian food.”

In an interview to the BBC, Divya, an ABVP member who was injured in the violence, said: “If people wanted to eat chicken on their own, they could, but the mess will not cook chicken as prasad was being made that day.”

The opponents of the ABVP have cited her statement as proof of the ABVP’s imposition of vegetarianism.

Kaveri Hostel president Naveen Kumar, a general secretary of the Congress’s National Students’ Union of India, told The Telegraph: “Vegetarian and non-vegetarian food is cooked separately and served separately. The menu was decided in a general body meeting a month back. This has always been the case, so there is no reason for anyone to object. Prasad was also made in the mess, and I participated in the havan and had the prasad as well. Chicken could not be cooked as ABVP chased away the meat supplier, and there was no food for most of the residents and vegetarian curry was only made for those who have veg food.”

After its march on campus on Sunday night, JNU ABVP secretary Umesh Ajmeera said: “The present Kaveri mess secretary is also a leftist… It was part of his plan to not allow non-veg in the mess.” The group has asked the varsity administration to probe and punish those responsible for the clash.

PTI quoted poultry supplier Ahmed of Rama Krishna Puram’s Indira Market saying: “On the morning of April 10, I got a call from some JNU students asking me not to supply meat to the Kaveri Hostel. I told them that I had received the order on April 9. But they threatened me saying if I supplied meat to the hostel, they would ensure that I am not able to supply meat to other JNU hostels.”

He added that around 4pm, he received a call from Kaveri Hostel mess secretary Raghib asking him to deliver the chicken. “I stopped my car and my workers started taking out the meat. At that time, five to seven men came and started threatening me. They even got into a scuffle with some mess committee members…”