Punjab: HC to hear PIL on LPU violence today

The petition, filed by a student, was mentioned for urgent hearing on Tuesday and acceding to the request, the court agreed to hear the matter on Wednesday

The Punjab and Haryana high court would take up a public interest litigation (PIL) on Wednesday seeking an independent probe or by Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into violence at Lovely Professional University (LPU), Phagwara.

The plea claimed that unverified claims about women students set off violence at two universities on consecutive nights, a few months before the elections. (HT File)

The petition, filed by a student, was mentioned for urgent hearing on Tuesday and acceding to the request, the court agreed to hear the matter on Wednesday. “The petitioner, Ravi Raj, has reliably learnt that a large number of outsiders, including male and female, mostly of age of around 30 years arrived at the campus of university some of them in open cars and other vehicles, even carrying walkie-talkies, carrying and banishing swords, rods, guns and sickles and with their faces well covered to conceal their identity and forcibly opened and broke the main gates and indulged in the vandalism,” the plea claimed, adding that shops were looted and buildings set afire.

“Unverified claims about women students set off violence at two universities on consecutive nights, a few months before the elections. It can’t be a co-incidence. Who created these claims, who spread them, who sent armed outsiders onto the campus, and whether anyone within the country or outsider did so by design, are questions that only a central agency can answer,” it said, referring to a similar incident reported last week at Chitkara University in Rajpura.