Violence returns to OU campus

ABVP activists beat up OU JAC member

Hyderabad: Osmania University witnessed tension on Thursday as a student was beaten up by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) activists for not participating in the bandh call given by Telangana Unemployed Youth JAC opposing the government’s move to regularise contract workers.

According to the victim, K Ravi, a student of Department of Telugu, the ABVP activists beat him up even though he had told them that he was not opposed to the bandh, but was going out as he had some urgent work. He said the ABVP activists used foul language and attacked him. As the news spread, other student organisations retaliated and some hostel rooms were set on fire late on Wednesday night. “My Ph D thesis, certificates including money and gold that I had saved for my sister’s wedding were burnt to ashes by the ABVP activists N,” Sarath said.

Students alleged that the ABVP activists bore grudge against Sarath for contesting against BJP leader G Kishan Reddy on MIM ticket. They said the activists poured petrol in the room of Sarath and set it on fire. However, ABVP activists’ denied this and said that it was the left wing students who had burnt one of their room’s first.

J Neeranjan, the state secretary ABVP, said that the incident had nothing to do with the ABVP student body. He said what had started as a small fight between the students led to the trouble in the campus.

However, on Thursday the student non-ABVP student organizations from OU and English and Foreign Languages condemned the attack on Ravi and took out a rally from university library to Arts College. The agitating students burnt an effigy of BJP leader G Kishan Reddy.

The police who rushed to the site of incident registered six FIRs. They include cases under SC/ST Atrocity Act. However, so far no arrests have been made in the connection with the incident, police said.