`Don’t ask us to prove our Indianness’

Even the teachers are unhappy over the way the IB sleuth had sneaked into Habib Hall without informing the university authorities to arrest Mobeen Ahmad. The students see the entire episode as having been “planned” by the administration to bring “disrepute” to the minority-run institution. “We are not averse to investigations but what is being carried out here is fabrication, and that too on the basis of religion,” says Walihur Rehman, a post-graduate student of English literature. “We want an impartial inquiry into the incident by an all-party parliamentary committee.”

Rehman’s classmate, Imran, protests: “We are not treated as Indians. We are always branded as ISI agents. It’s a shame that we have to prove our patriotism and national feelings all the time before others.”

Plagued by student unrest and violence, the university has to now contend with the charge of being a breeding ground for anti-national activities. The police claim in the past there has not been much surveillance of the activities of the “doubtful elements” on the campus but now the situation needs to be watched.

This makes the students furious. “This is an open campus and anybody can walk in here. If ISI training camps are run here, do you think it will remain unknown to the authorities? The police come here only to cover up their inefficiency. Mobeen is a `distinguished’ and `honest’ person. He is being framed by the police to show that they are doing something in the bomb blast cases,” says research scholar Dr Anwar Ahmad.

`Biased’ media reports have inflamed passions further. The Agra police has claimed that the arrested person has close links with the militant outfit Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, but the students laugh it off. “The police claims that half a kilogram of RDX was recovered from Mobeen. Will any militant carry RDX so openly? Mobeen was returning to the hostel after making a call when he was `forcibly’ pushed into a Tata Sumo by some plainclothesmen,” says Imran. “Even before anything has been proved before a court, some leading newspapers have already declared him to be a militant.”

Vice-Chancellor Hamid Ansari, a former bureaucrat, believes the incident could have been handled better. “Initially, we had no clue who was behind the incident. We learnt about it the next morning…It could have been done in a more responsible way by involving the teachers. The teachers have made a tremendous effort to maintain peace on the campus after the arrest.”

Agrees Senior Superintendent of Police Ramji Lal: “We normally do not enter the students hostels. The police normally is there just to prevent any untoward situation.” However, for the first time in the past 15 years, the local police has arrested two individuals — Siraj and Abdul Mallik — from R.M. Hall, another hostel, and claimed to have seized a huge cache of arms.

Though everyone agrees that the two are not students of AMU, the police argue that criminal elements on the campus can exist only with the connivance of the students. Senior police officials are concerned about the rising crime graph on the campus. “A former student leader of AMU, Naseem Hitler, kidnapped a student from Bihar, Ehsan-ul-Haq. Hitler, also from Bihar, sent a ransom note to the parents of the kidnapped boy. We could rescue Haq in time as his parents had informed us,” says a senior police officer.

Since the past three years, there has always been trouble on the campus during October-November and the authorities are keeping their fingers crossed. Last November there was trouble over the university’s decision to introduce a half-yearly examination and the year before it was the quality of food served in the hostels.

Despite the odds, the new V-C who took over in June this year sounds confident and optimistic. “We need to engage the young minds in sports. AMU had a very good record in sports besides studies. I am putting a lot of emphasis on sports,” he says.