The Delhi Police on Thursday registered a case of rioting and assaulting public servants against unknown persons a day after members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the All India Students Association clashed at Delhi University’s Ramjas College. “On the basis of a police personnel’s complaint, we have registered an FIR against all students who created ruckus,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (north district) Jatin Narwal told PTI.

The complaint was lodged by the Station House Officer of Maurice Nagar, who was injured in the clashes on Wednesday. Another police officer said that Additional DCP-I Esha Pandey would conduct an inquiry into allegations of police high-handedness. As many as 80 students were detained briefly on Wednesday, reported The Times of India.

The policeman said that seven personnel were injured when clashes broke out between members of the two organisations following a students’ protest march against the cancellation of Jawaharlal Nehru University student Umar Khalid’s speech at a seminar on Tuesday. More than 20 students and several journalists were injured. The protest march was supposed to start from Ramjas College campus and continue up to Maurice Nagar police station, but the students were reportedly stopped by ABVP supporters.

However, ABVP’s Saket Bahuguna told Scroll.in that Wednesday’s violence was committed by “both sides, but was instigated and started by the left student and teacher groups.”

In an address to students protesting at the police headquarters on Thursday, Umar Khalid said that the “ABVP’s attack was not about an individual”. Khalid pointed out that by halting a seminar involving a few people, ABVP had ensured their (seminar speakers’) word reached people across the country.

Professor Abha Dev Habib said that the ABVP, along with the Delhi Police, had blockaded Ramjas College on Wednesday afternoon and threatened protestors against holding their march outside the college campus.

Speaking to Scroll.in, a political science student from Lady Shri Ram student said the police had detained her, “dragged into a bus and finally dropped her off at Hauz Khaz metro station” on Wednesday. The LSR student said that while she had participated in protests before, “this [Wednesday’s violence] was the most brutal and the first time we were detained”.

Her colleagues from the college alleged ABVP members harassed and heckled them during the clash on Wednesday. Two other Lady Shri Ram college students said they saw boys yelling, “Azadi legi tu? [Will you take freedom?]” while chasing female students. LSR student Devika said a policeman dragged her hijab-wearing friend off a bus.

“My students told me they were heckled and assaulted. We heard that ABVP members were going into metro stations to identify students who had protested and hauling them out,” Debjani Sengupta from the English department at Indraprastha College for Women said.

A seminar on Tuesday had been cancelled after ABVP members protested against the participation of Khalid and Shehla Rashid Shora. The talk was part of Ramjas College’s Literary Society and English department’s two-day seminar on “Cultures of Protest”. Stones were allegedly pelted at the conference room windows when organisers had tried to hold the seminar, though Khalid was not present. Khalid is a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University and was one of three arrested in connection with a controversial Afzal Guru event at the university in February 2016.

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