The incident which occurred on Tuesday afternoon at Dr. Shivaram Karanth Government First Grade College, Bellare, in Sullia Taluk of Dakshina Kannada district, triggered communal tension in the region.
The victim Sajida (name changed), claimed that even though a group of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad activists dragged her in front of other students, thrashed and pushed her to the ground without any provocation, the principal and few other lecturers of the College admonished her “not to blow the issue out of proportion”.
The final year student of Bachelor of Arts, who was hospitalised after the inhuman assault, said that the assailants also tore her dress and threatened her with dire consequences if she revealed the matter to her parents or reported to police.
The assailants include six students from final year B.Com identified as Rajnish, Amruth, Jayaprakash, Sudarshan, Nithyanada, Pramod, one student from final year BA identified as Hemacharya and two students from second year BA identified as Ajit and Udaya.
College Bundh
Sajida said that many of her classmates boycotted the classes and staged a protest on Tuesday in response to a nationwide college bundh call given by ABVP and Youth Against Corruption demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the wake of the alleged coal block allocation controversy.
“We, a group of 5-6 final year BA girls entered classroom on time and waited till afternoon. Unfortunately, neither any lecturer came to our classroom nor they declared a holiday. At around 1:00 pm, when we had just opened our lunch boxes, a B.Com student from our College started at us for some time and left. A couple of minutes later he came back along with a group of his mischievous friends, who began to shout at us. When, one among the intruders used abusive words against our parents, we warned them against misbehaving with girls. We also warned those B.Com students not to enter BA classroom without permission”, she said.
Manhandled
Sajida said that within a few minutes after the incident she and her friends decided to go home. “When we stepped out of the classroom the same group surrounded us. They manhandled me and violently pushed me to the ground”, she said.
“They also used abusive words against me and my friends, our mothers and our community”, she added.
Don't repeat it please!
She said that though she revealed the entire incident to the principal and other lecturers, they did not take it seriously. “They summoned the students, who manhandled me, asked them not to repeat such behaviour in future and let them off. They also asked us to forget the incident,” she said.
Warning
Disheartened by attitude of the principal, while Sajida was walking home, the same group of ABVP miscreants once again encountered her and warned her against revealing about the incident to anyone. “They threatened that they would storm into our house and harm everyone if I revealed the matter. I immediately ran towards home and revealed everything to my elders”, she said. Later a complaint was lodged with jurisdictional Bellare police station.
Scarf Issue
One of the classmates of Sajida on condition of anonymity said that the ABVP activists were deliberately spreading hatred between Hindu and Muslim students of the college since many days.
She said that a couple of weeks ago some of the ABVP activists had insisted Muslim girls not to wear scarf inside the campus or classroom. “We had ignored them and continued to wear scarf. But, now they have crossed all the limits”, she said.
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