Srinagar
Days after an alleged attack on south Indian students in the Central University of Jammu, the varsity’s website was hacked on Tuesday to protest the violence against students.
Media reports claimed that several students had claimed that they were attacked and called “beef-eaters” and “anti-nationals”.
Denying any attack on students from Kerala, CUJ Vice-Chancellor Prof Ashok Aima told Indian Express that varsity administration has lodged a police complaint to trace those who hacked the website. “These students (from Kerala) belong to the AISF and SFI. All they want is free food, free liquor and free drugs…nobody questions them,” the report quoted VC as saying.
On Tuesday, Kerala Chief Secretary Tom Jose wrote to his Jammu and Kashmir counterpart and sought steps to ensure the safety of students from Kerala, according to an official. A spokesman for the Kerala Chief Minister’s office said two students from Kerala, studying at CUJ, had informed the CM’s office about the issue, the report said.
V-C Aima said CUJ has nearly 1,500 students and nearly 60-65 per cent of them are Muslims, “including those from Kashmir and Kerala”. Putting the number of students from Kerala at 70-80, he said, “They are very volatile; they are hardcore members of AISF and Leftist movement.”
The hackers, who called themselves “Kerala Cyber Warriors’’, said their action is to protest the alleged attack on students from Kerala by some “brainless ABVP-RSS’’ activists in Jammu, and “labelling them as beef eaters, JNU sympathisers, anti-nationals’’.
ABVP’s CUJ unit president Mukesh Manhas told Indian Express, “They are people with Left ideology. As there are no takers for that (ideology) on campus, they are stooping low by naming ABVP and RSS…. We condemn the violence on campus, but the way they are raising false accusations, anything can happen (now), and they alone will be responsible.”
On Friday, several students of CUJ said (they refused to be identified), trouble started during a Kerala folk dance event organised by final-year students of Supply Chain Management course in MBA department as part of the annual cultural programme, ‘UDAAN’. University officials cancelled the event, ostensibly for the paucity of time. After a brief argument with organisers, the MBA students performed outside the auditorium, when two students had an argument, a student told Indian Express.
According to students, when they were returning to their hostel in Jammu after the event, a group of students, allegedly belonging to ABVP, and backed by people from nearby areas, attacked them. “There were 30 or 40 assailants. They beat up about two dozen students who come from outside Jammu, including Kerala,’’ a Mass Communication student, from Jammu division, said. “Whoever intervened was beaten up – even those from various areas of Jammu division.”
Love Kumar, a final-year National Security Studies student, who admitted having friends among ABVP activists, accused students from Kerala of blowing a small fight out of proportion.
Vice Chancellor Aima also said: “I did not allow them to emerge. I controlled them, otherwise, it could have been a situation as in JNU and Hyderabad (Central University), Indian Express reported.
