ABVP students heckle Telangana principal for 'wearing shoes' during flag hoisting

ABVP students also reportedly demanded that the principal apologise and chant ‘Jai Shree Ram’.

news Controversy

Students from the ABVP, the BJP’s student wing, heckled the principal of a government junior college in Telangana for not removing his shoes while hoisting the national flag during Independence Day celebrations on Tuesday.

The incident occurred at Ailapur village in Telangana's Nizamabad district.

Multiple videos of the incident have surfaced which show ongoing Independence Day celebrations at the junior college.

As the principal, identified as Mohammed Yaqeen, steps forward and begins unfurling the flag, a student is heard telling him to remove his shoes. The chorus grows louder, even as the principal says that there is no such rule.

As a few people approach him and request him to stop, he unfurls the flag, and the national anthem begins playing.

This reportedly irks ABVP students, who then go on to allegedly heckle the principal, and force him out of the college's premises.

A second video that has surfaced showed several people holding Yaqeen's hand and escorting him to the road outside the college, and refusing to let him go.

They even chant slogans like 'Principal down, down!' and 'Bharat Mata ki Jai', even as he tries to continue explaining that there was no rule that shoes had to be removed for flag hoisting.

However, a third video shows a more charged crowd, all gathered around Yaqeen, demanding that he apologise, as they chant 'Jai Shree Ram'.

According to reports, the Principal alleged that the ABVP students pulled him by the collar, abused him, and forced him to chant the same slogans of 'Jai Shree Ram'.

Following this, Yaqeen registered a police complaint.

The Nizamabad police have reportedly booked a case under IPC sections 290 (Punishment for public nuisance), 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from his duty), 153A (Promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language) against unidentified persons.

Condemning the incident, the Majlis Bachao Tehreek (MBT) demanded immediate action against the accused.

In a letter to Telangana Chief Minister K Chandrasekhar Rao, MBT leader Amjed Ullah Khan said, "Mohammed Yaqeenuddin is a very respected person in the Muslim community of Nizamabad. Throughout this incident, the local police and the entire staff of the college were mute spectators."

"The ABVP workers even raised anti-Muslim slogans. When I checked the photos of flag hoisting by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and several Chief Ministers, I found that all of them were wearing shoes. This is a sign of growing intolerance and hatred by RSS, and future planning for the 2019 election in Telangana," Khan claimed.