FIR against 25 ABVP members for vandalising Azim Premji University campus, assaulting security personnel

The protest was against a discussion announced by Spark Reading Circle, affiliated with the All India Students' Association, on Kashmir.

Bengaluru: Bengaluru Rural police have registered an FIR against 25 members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) after they allegedly trespassed into the campus of Azim Premji University, assaulted six security personnel and a student, and vandalised the property.

According to a police complaint lodged by S Wilson, security manager at the university, around 100 ABVP members barged into the university's Sarjapur Road campus around 6 pm on February 24. When security staff tried to prevent their entry, the group allegedly assaulted them with wooden sticks and abused them before issuing death threats.

Six security personnel — Jagadish, Chandan Mahalik, Chattar Bahadur, Naresh, Shripati and Harish — sustained injuries in the assault. A first-year BA student, Mohammed Ali Ahmed, was also allegedly attacked and threatened with dire consequences.

The protesters allegedly blackened the university nameboard and raised slogans, causing tension on the campus.

The protest was against a discussion announced by Spark Reading Circle, affiliated with the All India Students' Association (AISA), on the 1991 Kunan Pashpora mass rape in Kashmir.

The RSS-affiliated ABVP claimed that the discussion portrayed the Indian Army in a "derogatory" manner.

The university condemned the vandalism and noted that the discussion did not happen at all.

Based on the complaint, the Sarjapur police have registered a case for unlawful assembly, criminal trespass, assault, and damage to property.

'Police negligence''

It has been alleged that the Sarjapur police came to know about the incident only after videos of the vandalism went viral on social media. By the time they reached the spot, the damage had already been done.

Sources said that only around 10 police personnel were initially present at the scene but were unable to control or prevent the attack due to their limited strength.

There are also allegations that the police initially refused to register a case, calling the incident “just a protest" and only took the protesters into preventive custody. However, after more than 1,000 university students staged a counter-protest inside the campus to condemn the vandalism, the police registered an FIR.