Oppn cries foul as Karnataka Govt goes ahead with terror awareness campaign

At the programme held at the Jnana Jyothi auditorium of Bangalore University,students from various colleges were told to watch out for suspicious activities in their surroundings at college and home.

“We were told to watch out for activities like usage of multiple SIM cards by students,international calls being made and secretive meetings by people of any community,” V Balakrishna,a second-year arts student of Bangalore’s Government Arts College,said.

“It was a very useful meeting,” added another student,Prateek Kumar. “They told us how we could report suspicious activities,how descriptions can be given.”

The B S Yeddyurappa Government has constituted a state-level committee,headed by Higher Education Minister Arvind Limbavalli — a former ABVP activist — to conduct the programme at block,taluk,district and divisional levels.

The programme was launched at Mangalore on January 12 on the birth anniversary of Swami Vivekananda and is to be concluded on February 18 with a rally in Bangalore. Yeddyurappa participated in the campaign at Belgaum on January 23 on the birth anniversary of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose.

It aims to target 18 lakh students,and on February 3,the state Government approved Rs 2 crore for it.

The Opposition has argued that the campaign labels terrorists on the basis of religion instead of viewing it as a global problem,and questioned the use of Swami Vivekananda and Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s names for it. The police had to resort to a mild lathicharge on Wednesday when Youth Congress protestors attempted to storm a convention hall at Bangalore University where briefings were being held by the Department of Higher Education for college principals and staff on the programme.

Rejecting allegations calling the programme communal,the Higher Education Minister says the campaign was launched in Mangalore on account of the arrest of several Indian Mujahideen-connected persons from the district in recent times. He also cited instances of college students being associated with terrorism as reasons prompting the programme.

BJP leaders also say that the awareness campaign is on the lines of an initiative by the Nehru Yuva Kendra Sanghathan of the UPA Government’s Youth Services Ministry on December 18. The NYKS campaign is titled “Youth against terrorism and Violence” and involves seminars,skits and workshops.

In lectures on Thursday,the students were given the example of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi’s assailants,who were tracked to a hideout in Bangalore on the basis of information provided by a milk vendor.