Savitribai Phule Pune University is on the boil. Here’s why

The Vidyapeeth Vidyarthi Sangharsh Kriti Samiti, Yuva Kranti Dal, New Socialist Alternative, Vanchit Bahujan Yuva Aghadi, Samyak Vidyarthi Andolan and Lokayat are some of the independent student groups which have a presence in the university.

Violence broke out at Savitribai Phule Pune University campus during protest. (Express Photo)

On Friday, a protest held by the BJP on the SPPU premises against an objectionable graffiti of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the walls of one of the hostels turned violent after four students, including two women, were surrounded by a mob and beaten. This incident came two days after violence broke out between the ABVP and the SFI on November 1.

Here’s a look at the chronology of events that led to the escalation of violence at SPPU:

November 1: A registration drive

On November 1, SFI members began a registration drive at the university refectory. An hour later, some ABVP members arrived at the location and violence broke out. Both groups claim that the other started the violence in which four ABVP members and five SFI members were injured. All those involved were taken to the Chaturshringi police station where cross-FIRs were filed.

Photographs of an ABVP member with a bleeding head injury were circulated widely while SFI members said they suffered internal injuries on their heads and chests. The ABVP then issued a press release stating that the SFI was conducting its membership drive without permission and was forcing students to become members. The SFI, they said, attacked them when they questioned the permission status. The SFI claimed that the ABVP attacked them to disrupt the membership drive.

The Indian Express confirmed with the security office of the university that the SFI had the necessary permissions for their membership drive. The claim of forced student membership could not be verified while speaking to non-affiliated students present at the refectory at the time.

A few hours later, the ABVP held a march from the canteen to Dr B R Ambedkar’s statue at the university over the issue of security on campus.

November 2: A rally against ABVP

On November 2, almost all student groups and organisations, including the SFI, NSUI, NSC (both factions), New Socialist Alternative, Youth Congress, Yuva Kranti Dal, Vanchit Bahujan Yuva Aghadi and several others, held a protest rally “against the tyranny of ABVP on campus”. This was accompanied by a mass student registration drive at the refectory.

Student members of these groups, who study in SPPU-affiliated colleges in Pune, were also in attendance.

Late at night, objectionable graffiti allegedly disrespecting Prime Minister Narendra Modi was discovered on a wall of one of the student hostels on campus.

November 3: A BJP protest

The Pune unit of the BJP announced a protest on the university premises. Over 200 party workers gathered outside the main building of the university, a few metres away from the refectory. During the protest, the BJP’s Pune unit president, Dheeraj Ghate, told The Indian Express, “These students…and other Left-wing groups who are not even enrolled in the university come to the campus and brainwash students into taking the wrong path.” He named four people who he claimed were not students of the university.

The Indian Express confirmed that three of them were Masters’ and PhD students studying on campus. In fact, two of them were named as student representatives on a committee formed by the university administration last month. The fourth, Shravani Buwa, is a student at an SPPU-affiliated college in Pune.

Buwa, a member of the student group New Socialist Alternative, was conducting a student registration drive at the refectory while the protest was going on. She claimed that she and three other students were attacked at the refectory and alleged that the attackers made casteist slurs while hitting them.

In response, she said, they got up and began approaching the police who were stationed outside in the protest area, while sloganeering ‘Jai Bheem’. That was where they were surrounded and attacked by the protesters, she added.

While several people corroborated that there were four “Leftist students” in the centre of the mob, some said that they were beaten because they were the ones who made the graffiti while others said they had come to the protest area and abused PM Modi.

Amid the violence, some party workers also pushed and slapped a security guard. One of the attackers was made to sit in the police van.

About 75 police personnel were deployed but only a few tried to stop the mob. Finally, after repeated calls were made on the loudspeaker for the crowd to disperse, the four students were herded into the police van.

Meanwhile, protesters kept hitting the van with slippers and shouting slurs until the van began to move. The attacker who had been made to sit in the van was made to get down before the van left for Chaturshringi police station.

State-level BJP spokesperson Pradip Gavade said, “We were protesting peacefully but some members of the Left organisation suddenly came and started abusing and creating a ruckus… If four people enter our protest and abuse PM Modi or us, there will be some consequences. But they were the ones who started the violence, not us.”

The four injured students were released later and said that they intended to file FIRs.