A day after the the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad wrote letters to Union Ministers demanding the cancellation of a scheduled documentary screening of jailed student leader Umar Khalid, Congress questioned the move.
Karnataka Congress President BK Hariprasad on Tuesday called Umar Khalid a nationalist and questioned ABVP’s authority to speak on him.
“Umar Khalid is a nationalist, and ABVP has no right to speak on him because they adore Nathuram Godse—who was an anti-national and the first terrorist of the country. They have no moral right," he said.
Khalid has been in jail for six years without a trial.
The ABVP, the student arm of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), addressed the letters to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, Union Education Minister Pralhad Joshi, and Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Law and Justice, Arjun Ram Meghwal.
They demanded that the centre intervene to enforce the cancellation of the event and to order a high-level inquiry against the NLSIU administration.
The letter was sent a day after the NLSIU decided to postpone the event. It was originally meant to be screened at 7 pm on September 14.
“While the event organisers recently announced a temporary postponement citing security and administrative grounds, ABVP Bengaluru highlights that a delay is simply a stalling tactic to let public outrage subside,” Abhinandan Mirji, the Mahanagara Secretary of the ABVP, said in a statement released Monday evening.
It said that educational institutions cannot serve as “platforms for political propaganda” linked to Khalid.
