'Jadavpur University hub of anti-nationals'

The Bharatiya Janata Party in West Bengal on Saturday termed Jadavpur University as a “hub of anti-national elements” and accused the Opposition Communist Party of India-Marxist and the varsity’s Vice-Chancellor of supporting them, a day after rival groups of students clashed on the campus over screening of a political film.

“Student unrest has become a common phenomenon in JU. The screening of a film, cleared by the Censor Board, was stopped illegally. The trend of CPI-M and Left-backed student unions of JU has been to stop anything that is against their ideology, which is totally against the country’s democratic set up. We condemn it,” state BJP chief Dilip Ghosh said.

“Jadavpur University is a hub of anti-nationals. Left-backed students unions are breeding ground for anti-nationals and that is why we have seen anti-India slogans being raised by a section of JU students,” he alleged.

Accusing the varsity’s VC of supporting anti-nationals elements on the campus, Ghosh demanded that his role be probed. “We will inform the Centre of the activities going on inside the JU campus,” he said.

Rival groups of students had on Friday clashed on the varsity campus over the screening of Vivek Agnihotri-directed political film ‘Buddha in a Traffic Jam’ triggering chaos during which some girls were allegedly molested and BJP actor-turned-politician Roopa Ganguly was not allowed to enter its premises.

The fracas began after the film’s screening ended late in the evening, and students from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad fought with activists of Left-backed student unions in which a few of them received minor injuries, officials said.