No anti-national slogans at Fergusson College: Police exonerate Pune students

Pune: The police on Friday said that “anti-national” slogans were not raised at Pune’s Fergusson College campus on Tuesday after ABVP members and a group of Ambedkarite students got into a heated argument during an informal event on ‘Truth of JNU’. The college principal R G Pardeshi had written a letter to the police stating that “anti-national” slogans were raised at the event, organised by ABVP, but he later withdrew it saying the reference to such kind of sloganeering in it was a “typographical error”. “When the slogans were being shouted, our police personnel were present and according to their investigation, a total of 29 slogans were raised. “Out of those, 14 slogans were raised by a group of students who belong to the Ambedkarite ideology and 15 slogans were raised by ABVP members. None of the slogans were anti-national in nature,” a senior police official said. [caption id=“attachment_2695630” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Maharashtra police. File photo. AFP[/caption] Pardeshi on Thursday expressed “regret” over the letter which had caused a flutter with the reference to the sloganeering during the event in the presence of JNU ABVP leader Alok Singh. In the wake of the letter, several Dalit organisations accused Pardeshi of “branding” students including Sujat Ambedkar, great-grandson of B R Ambedkar and son of former MP Prakash Ambedkar, as “anti-nationals”. On 23 March, NCP MLA Jitendra Awhad was allegedly manhandled by a group of workers belonging to Bhartiya Janata Yuwa Morcha and some right-wing organisations in the college campus. “According to our report, there were total 29 slogans raised by both the groups. ABVP raised total 15 slogans which include ‘Bharat Mata ki Jai’, ‘Vande Mataram’ and the counter group raised total 14 slogans such as ‘Jai Bhim’, ‘Manuwad se azadi’, ‘RSS se azadi’, ‘Kanhaiya Kumar Zindabaad’, ‘Kitne Rohith maronge, har ghar se Rohith nikalega’. “We then concluded a report with a note that though 29 slogans were raised, none of the slogans was ‘anti-national’ in nature, and submitted it (the report) to higher officials,” the officer said. He said there was no question of sending this report to the college authorities since they have already retracted on their letter, demanding police action for raising “anti-national” slogans PTI