While across the country, effigies of Ravana were burnt on Dussehra to signify the triumph of good over evil, in Jawaharlal Nehru University on Tuesday night, students burnt an effigy with 10 heads that included those of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP president Amit Shah, Baba Ramdev and their own Vice-Chancellor.

While burning of effigies with photos of terrorists as the 10 heads of Ravan as well as the national flag of Pakistan was a trend this year, the JNU students belonging to the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of the Congress, took the trend a little further, creating a furore on social media once the pictures of the burning were uploaded.

“Evil of govt. policies”

The university administration is yet to react but it had only last week, ordered an inquiry into the effigy-burning of the Gujarat government and “gau-rakshaks” on campus and had sent show-cause notices to the students who had conducted the event.

A spokesperson for the NSUI said the students created the effigy as they were not content with the Modi government that had come up with anti-poor and anti-people policies and they were symbolically destroying the “evil” of the government’s policies.

The effigy had the heads of Sadhvi Pragya, Nathuram Godse and Asaram Bapu as well. "The effigy-burning was to symbolise our dissatisfaction with the current government and to root out the evil from governance," said Sunny Diman, an NSUI activist and student of JNU.

The students also came down heavily on what they call “anti-student policies” and the decision of the university administration to muzzle dissenting voices on campus.

The effigy was burnt at Saraswati Dhaba as a park of protest