'Free Umar Khalid' and 'Long Live Naxalbari' were among the graffiti signs spotted on Saturday at New Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) a day after similar slogans added to ongoing protests at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI).
The JNU unit of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has also alleged that objectionable remarks were written beside a portrait of Veer Savarkar on campus.
This unit has also lashed out at Left-wing student groups and the university students' union (JNUSU) for promoting divisive political slogans instead of student issues.
Former JNU research scholar Umar Khalid has been in jail since September 2020 in an Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) case linked to the alleged wider conspiracy behind the February 2020 Delhi riots that killed 53 people.
Reports say the university administration has launched a probe into the graffiti, which has sparked a row, even as the JMI protests spiralled into clashes between protesters and guards over the reintroduction of the university student union (JMISU), which had been disbanded in 2006 due to campus violence.
The clashes at JMI, which also sparked controversy over graffiti with slogans such as 'Free Sharjeel Imam' and 'Free Kashmir', later led to the university administration moving its classes online as a precautionary measure.
Imam was another JNU scholar arrested in 2020 over alleged seditious speeches during protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
The controversial slogans sparked a political row, and were condemned by the BJP and the Jamia administration.
The saffron party also lashed out at the presence of Congress MP Imran Masood at the JMI protests on Friday, who declared support for the student protests.
"Does the Congress party endorse the demand, boldly written at Jamia Millia Islamia, to separate Kashmir from India? What is the Congress party's stand on Sharjeel Imam?" questioned BJP MP Ravi Shankar Prasad.
Masood and nine others were later detained by the Delhi Police, though he had also criticised the slogans, telling News18 that "those who wrote these slogans should be identified and strict action should be taken against them ... (since) Kashmir is an integral part of India and will remain so".
