JNU clash: Education ministry seeks detailed report on violence in campus during Ram Navami occasion

Two days after violence that erupted in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus, Union Ministry of Education on Tuesday sought a detailed report that led over non-vegetarian food at a hostel

Students belonging to a left-wing student union and RSS-linked Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) clashed amid arguments over non-vegetarian food at a hostel in the JNU on Sunday. Sharing photos and videos on social media to back their claims, the two groups accused each other of triggering violence on the campus.

Jawaharlal Nehru Students Union (JNUSU) president Aishe Ghosh alleged that members of the ABVP created a ruckus on the campus, and assaulted members of the hostel mess over cooking chicken. Countering this, the ABVP alleged that the left-wing student unions disrupted a prayer ceremony organized on the occasion of Ram Navami by shouting slogans.

The ABVP denied that it had demanded the removal of non-vegetarian items from the menu and alleged that rumours were being spread by some students. “Common students were organising a puja on the occasion of Ram Navami at the Kaveri Hostel. Members of Left-leaning organisations at first disrupted the puja, due to which it got delayed, and then after it was over, [they] attacked students who attended the puja,” Shivam Chaurasia, president of the ABVP’s JNU unit said.

The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, on Sunday protested at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus, demanding that non-vegetarian food should not be prepared inside the mess on the occasion of the festival.

The ABVP also accused the National Students Union of India (NSUI) and Left-backed students of preventing them from worshipping on Ram Navami.