By Syed Affan

On Friday, March 21, Delhi Police arrested Jamia Millia Islamia student Hazrat Parwana in connection with a scuffle that broke out during Diwali in October 2024, allegedly instigated by ABVP-YUVA Jamia, a Hindu right-wing group. 

Hazrat, a third-year undergraduate student of Sanskrit and a leader of the student wing of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), was arrested from Gate No. 18 of the university after he attended an iftar gathering and was taken to Jamia Nagar Police Station. “He was mistreated, abused, and beaten, before being shifted to Tihar Jail in the morning,” said Saurabh, a student activist and PhD scholar associated with AISA.

Hazrat’s brother and legal team had filed for anticipatory bail a day before his arrest, but due to logistical issues, it was initially rejected. Late on Saturday night, he was released after securing a bail from a Delhi court.

On Saturday, March 22, student organizations staged a protest inside the campus in the evening, condemning what they described as Hazrat Parwana’s “illegal arrest.” The Jamia administration shut off the lights during the demonstration, a move students called the varsity’s old “reactionary tactic to suppress dissent.”

The case in which Hazrat was arrested traces back to the evening of October 22, 2024, on Diwali. The Rashtriya Kala Manch (RKM), a wing of the RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), had organized a rangoli-making event at the university.

“While they were making rangoli, outsiders affiliated with ABVP—senior BJP leaders, RSS cadres, and Bhanu Pratap Singh, who contested in the Delhi University Students’ Union election last year—trespassed into the campus. The administration neither checked their ID cards nor responded promptly,” said Anjan Azad, a student activist and member of AIRSO.

ABVP invited outsiders through Gate No. 7, endangering student safety and triggering a scuffle as they created chaos on campus, disrupted campus harmony, and provoked Jamia students.

“They raised slogans of Jai Shree Ram and lit firecrackers inside the campus while azaan was going on, deliberately provoking students,” Anjan said.

He added that the slogan Jai Shree Ram has been “weaponized by Hindutva acolytes in every Hindu-Muslim pogrom”. “It is used in the context of RSS’s terroristic violence. When organizations affiliated with it raise the same slogan, it exposes the same intent, the same agenda,” he said.

This story was originally published in theobserverpost.com. Read the full story here.