6 Bengaluru varsity students booked for insulting Ambedkar, Dalits in skit

The college has suspended six students involved in staging the skit and constituted a disciplinary committee to probe into the matter.

The Karnataka State Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes has sought a detailed report from the university, besides action against the guilty.

The skit was staged on Wednesday as part of a youth festival organised by the CMS. University officials also said that the youth festival has also been suspended.

Once the controversy erupted, the theatre group involving six students that staged the skit issued an apology on social networking site, Instagram, where they had uploaded the video of the skit.

Some Dalit organisations in Karnataka and Maharashtra took offence to the skit, following which a police complaint was lodged by Aakshay Bansode, state member, Yuva of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, with the Superintendent of Police in Nanded, Maharashtra. “The skit is highly casteist and performed with serious ill motive and to intentionally insult and humiliate the community and people belonging to it. Moreover, the derogatory and defamatory statement about Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar is also highly offensive at large and showcases intention of the performers and the university authorities as this act went through various checks yet was allowed to perform on stage and publish it on social media,” Bansode alleged in his complaint.

A case has been registered under provisions of the SC and ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, and sections 153A (promoting enmity), 149 (unlawful assembly) and 295A (deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) upon a complaint from Madhusudhana K N, Assistant Director, Grade 1 of Social Welfare Department, Bengaluru South.