BJP workers heckle Bengaluru students for opposing pro-CAA banner, students fight back

The BJP workers called the students of Jyoti Nivas College "anti-national" and told them to "Go to Pakistan."

news Controversy

A few students of the Jyoti Nivas College in Bengaluru’s Koramangala were in for a rude shock on Wednesday when a group of BJP Yuva Morcha workers got involved in an altercation with them and called them “uneducated” and “anti-nationals”. According to a student, they were told to “Go to Pakistan”.

Videos of the incident which has since then got viral showed that the altercation had almost escalated to physical jostling between the BJP men and the female students. The police were eventually called in and they asked the BJP workers to leave.

The issue broke out at around 3 pm, when a group of BJP workers stuck a pro-CAA banner on the college wall. The banner had the pictures of PM Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa and Lok Sabha MP Tejasvi Surya. A bunch of students objected to the banner on the college wall. The BJP workers then insisted that the students and pedestrians sign the banner irrespective of their objections.

In the video, a man is seen saying, “You are not concerned about citizenship, you are concerned about yourself… you are not Indians.” He later goes on to say that the students are not the owners of the college and only the owner can only object to the banner being stuck to the wall. As the men shout menacingly at the girls, they refuse to back down and tell the men to remove the banner. As one man says let's have a debate, a student can be heard retorting that this was no debate as the men were shouting at them. One of the other men then says that they were just general public, to which the girls reply that they weren't just general public, and to look at what was written on their banners.

TNM spoke to a professor who had come out to help the students after the altercation.

On condition of anonymity, she said, “Thankfully, there was no major physical confrontation as a lot of people in the street had gathered by then. But as seen in the video, there were a lot of personal comments made by the BJP workers against our students. They called our students “uneducated” and “anti-national”. Noting some students were Muslims, they asked them to go to Pakistan and other forms of personal attack. Thinking of the safety issues, we had to ask the students to leave.”

The professor added that the student body is apprehensive about their safety and security even though the police had eventually driven the BJP workers away on Wednesday.

The college administration is expected to issue a statement later on Thursday.

The professor further said, “This incident is not isolated. A similar thing happened with my flatmate in Koramangala. I think they have formed a pattern and they target unsuspecting women who are just stepping out of office and bully them into signing pro-CAA banners.”

Taking to Twitter, Jayanagar MLA Sowmya Reddy said she and her father the local MLA Ramalinga Reddy had taken up the matter with DCP South East Isha Panth and the college principal.