?Key factors in Prof death overlooked?

AKHIL BHARATIYA Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) national general secretary Vishnu Dutt Sharma admitted on Thursday that the Bharatiya Janata Party?s handling of the Sabharwal murder case has led to differences between the organisations.

AKHIL BHARATIYA Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) national general secretary Vishnu Dutt Sharma admitted on Thursday that the Bharatiya Janata Party’s handling of the Sabharwal murder case has led to differences between the organisations.

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Sharma, who was in the City to lead an ABVP agitation, lashed out at the State Government and said that it had overlooked several key factors, carried out shoddy investigation and implicated ABVP activists under pressure while ignoring the complicity of National Students Union of India (NSUI) in the murder of Professor Sabharwal and death of Professor M L Nath.

He said that the ABVP was doing exceptionally well in the student body elections and out of the 28 councils in the State they were on the verge of victory in 16 councils.

He said that till August 30 a case was registered against unidentified accused in the death of Professor Sabharwal but the State Government under pressure from Congress, Governor and certain sections of the media ordered a CID inquiry, which submitted a botched up report. Acting on that report a case under Section 302 was registered against Shashiranjan Akela and Vimal Tomar.

It may be recalled that an FIR was lodged against them at 12.20 pm on the fateful day, while that against NSUI was lodged at 12.50 pm indicating that they were the last ones with Professor Sabharwal. About 1,000 Congress activists had been put in a makeshift jail behind the college building after disturbance on the campus and yet several of them are on tape threatening the professors. Recently four other ABVP activists have also been implicated in the case.

Sharma was also critical of the Governor and accused him of exerting pressure on the government and trying to bring the Congress back to power.

“The Governor, who in his capacity as Chancellor is directly responsible for the universities, has been unable to improve their working or raise their standards. Vice Chancellors who are directly appointed by the Chancellor have brought blemish to the reputation of the universities by their conduct and many of them are functioning without requisite qualifications.”

The condition in the universities of the State is such that one V-C has been charged with having a fake PhD, V-C of Jiwaji University (Gwalior) has been implicated in the murder of the wife of a former V-C and the former V-C of Indore university had used vulgar language against a female professor because of which he was served notice from the court, he said.