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UP:Now, RSS backed outfits threaten to storm AMU
On the day AMU vice chancellor (V-C) Tariq Mansoor met Union home minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi to clear the air on the Jinnah portrait issue, RSS supported Muslim Rashtriya Manch and Sunni Social Forum announced plans to storm the AMU campus to bring down the portrait of the Pakistan founder if the varsity didn’t do so itself.
On the day AMU vice chancellor (V-C) Tariq Mansoor met Union home minister Rajnath Singh in Delhi to clear the air on the Jinnah portrait issue, RSS supported Muslim Rashtriya Manch and Sunni Social Forum announced plans to storm the AMU campus to bring down the portrait of the Pakistan founder if the varsity didn’t do so itself.
The groups’ claim has flagged fresh concern over the law and order situation on the campus where examinations had to be postponed till May 12 in wake of the trouble over the 80-year-old Jinnah portrait, which ruling BJP leaders in UP want removed.
Interestingly, a fresh build up of right wing student groups was reported from Aligarh where these groups reportedly approached the senior police officers in the district questioning why the police was beginning to succumb under AMU pressure.
“If the AMU administration doesn’t do it themselves, we are going to storm the campus and bring it down. There is no justification for the portrait of the man who divided India,” said Mohd Raees of the Muslim Rashtriya Manch adding, “We would finalise our strategy in a few days.”
RSS veteran Indresh Kumar is the patron of the MRM and Sunni Social Forum. The Sangh has been a votary of undivided India or ‘Akhand Bharat’ and holds Jinnah chiefly responsible for the country’s partition.
The AMU administration refused to comment on the fresh threat but maintained that they have faith in the law of the land. “The home ministry has assured the V-C of all help in restoring normalcy on the campus. We have faith in the law of the land,” said Omar Peerzada, the AMU spokesman.
The AMU students have been agitating for the past eight days, protesting against what they call unprovoked attack on the campus by right wing student groups on the day when former Vice President Hamid Ansari was about to address students on the campus. Professor Najmul Islam, the AMU Teachers Association secretary, has also written to chief minister Yogi Adityanath demanding high level judicial probe into the violence on May 2.
An MRM functionary answered in the affirmative when asked if Sangh and outfits backed by it would make efforts to get Jinnah’s portraits, name and statues removed from all places where the Pakistan founder continues to find a mention.
“For instance a viral message on social media suggests that there is a photo of Jinnah in Parliament too alongside that of Shyama Prasad Mukerjee, the Sangh ideologue. We will check and if true would make efforts in that direction (removal). But it’s AMU from where we intend to begin,” said Mohd Wasi Haidar, who looks after MRM work in West Bengal.
