Suspected activists from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s student wing, assaulted the principal of a government college in Telangana for wearing shoes while hoisting the Indian flag on Independence Day on Tuesday.

Videos on social media show Mohammed Yaqeenuddin, the principal of Government Junior College at Nandipet Ailapur in Nizamabad, being heckled and forced to raise slogans of “Bharat mata ki jai” and “jai shri ram”. Some of the protestors also told Yaqeenuddin to “go to Pakistan”.

The principal filed a police complaint later in the day, following which around 15 people have been detained for causing public nuisance, assaulting a public servant and instigating enmity, NDTV reported.

All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen chief Asaduddin Owaisi condemned the incident in a series of tweets. He said that every Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister wore shoes, and asked if these protestors would attack them too. He added that the attackers were cowards who had decided to target a Muslim.

Owaisi also demanded their arrest and urged Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao to act against them, IANS reported.