27 September, New Delhi: The Secretary-General of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, Muhammad Salim Engineer has expressed concern and condemned the lathi charge on protesting girl students in Benares Hindu University (BHU). In a statement to the media, the JIH Secretary-General said that: ‘’We condemn the inept handling of the protesting girl students of BHU. The way girl students were lathi-charged by the police and security staff is particularly condemnable. The refusal of the Vice Chancellor- BHU to meet the protesting students and lend them a sympathetic ear was totally uncalled for and shows the insensitivity, negligence, and arrogance of the BHU administration. By filing 1000 FIRs against the protesting girls, it seems the authorities wanted to stifle the democratic right to dissent in a peaceful manner ’’.

Expressing his dissatisfaction with the way the entire episode unfolded, Salim Engineer has demanded that: “the government must complete its inquiry into the incident as soon as possible and make it public. Those guilty of misconduct and high-handedness over the incident must be punished even if they are found to be close to the ruling dispensation in the state as well as Center’’.

The Secretary-General of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind expressed surprise over the silence of the Prime Minister over the incident saying:’’ We are unable to fathom why this BHU mishandling has not yet been condemned by the PM. He should be the most concerned about it as it occurred in his constituency of Varanasi which he visited recently. Jamaat considers the safety and security of all students on campus to be the responsibility of the university administration and law enforcement agencies. Especially our girl students must feel safe and protected on campus and no outsider should be allowed to enter the campus and harass girl students. BHU administration has failed completely in protecting their students and has shown extreme insensitivity to the girl students who wanted to protest against this grave administrative lapse. The administration must intervene and take steps to rectify the situation, restore normalcy in the campus and take appropriate measures. A clear message must be given by the government that it will not tolerate such insensitivity and negligence on campus and such incidents should not occur in the future’’.

Issued by

Media Department

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind