Fearing violence, varsity cancels meet

New Delhi: Following the violent clashes that erupted in Ramjas College recently, Ambedkar University has postponed an event marking the 26th anniversary of the alleged Kunan-Poshpora mass rape in Kashmir.

Less than 24 hours before the event, the speakers were sent an email informing them that the seminar has been postponed citing the alleged threats to “freedom of speech” at university campuses.

“Ambedkar University administration want some changes in the shape of the event from the faculty and we will do that and reschedule a date and place sometime in March as you can see the times are bad for the university as a place for free speech and free discussions and critical engagements in our society,” the university said in an email to the speakers of the seminar.

On February 23, the university and an NGO, Women Against Sexual Violence and State Repression, were to organise an event to observe the “Kashmiri Women’s Day of Resistance” on the 26th anniversary of the alleged mass sexual violence unleashed by the Army against the villagers of Kunan and Poshpora in Kashmir.

Soldiers of Army’s 4-Rajputana Rifles had allegedly raped over 40 women in Kunan and Poshpora villages during the intervening night of February 23-24 in 1991.

Gowhar Fazili, a scholar who was supposed to present a paper entitled “Familial Grief, Resistance and the Political Imaginary in Kashmir”, confirmed receiving the email. “The institutions, academicians and activists buckle before the right-wing threats with such ease,” he said.

However, not only Ambedkar University but STGB Khalsa College in North Campus also had to postpone its street play competition following DU Students’ Union (DUSU) threats to not allow any “objectionable and anti-national content”.

Even Markitiers, a company providing marketing and management solutions to startups which was to organise an event on February 23 in DU to interact with students about possible startup ideas, decided to postpone the exercise.

“Due to the barbarous and vicious duel between the ABVP community and students from JNU and DU outside the Ramjas campus last week and in order to avoid unpleasantness and pacify the matter we are postponing our much awaited event campus explore February 28 to March 3,” the company said on its Facebook page.

Meanwhile, Delhi University teacher Prasanta Chakravarty, who was was roughed up during the recent North Campus clashes, has been hospitalised due to severe abdominal pain as a result of internal injuries.

He said he has been diagnosed with deep bruises and “concealed spasms” on the right kidney and his spine muscles have also suffered serious injuries.