New Delhi, April 27: Left and right student groups clashed in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Friday during the screening of a documentary on the contentious topic of 'Love Jihad'.
The screening of "In the name of love", was organised on Friday evening by 'Vivekanand Vichar Manch', a student group affiliated with the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh.
Terming the movie as a communalist propaganda, the JNU Students' Union was leading a protest against the screening, when it alleged that the students from the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) clashed with them and manhandled the protesters.
"We were leading a peaceful protest when they (ABVP members) clashed with us. They even hurled eggs and stones at us. We didn't react to their violence at all," Shubhanshu Singh, the JNUSU Joint Secretary, told IANS while he was at the Vasant Kunj Police Station to lodge a complaint against the violence.
The ABVP, meanwhile, termed the protesters the incitors of violence and accused them of hitting a security guard.
"After having murdered Freedom of Expression at Sabarmati Dhaba, JNUSU President Geeta Kumari helped Mohit Pandey and Aamir escape after intentionally hitting a guard. The guard has been grievously injured," former Joint Secretary Saurabh Sharma, an ABVP member and one of people named in the complaint by the union, said in a statement.
Talking to IANS earlier, the organisers had said that they had due permission for the screening of the movie and it was anybody's right to protest.
"The movie is based on the issue of 'conversion' in Kerala, of any community whether Hindu or Muslim or Christian, where people are being forcefully converted... JNUSU is protesting against the screening but it is their right to protest," Srikant Kumar, a member of the organising group, had said.
The film, subtitled "Melancholy of God's own country", is directed by Sudipto Sen.
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Pakistan reports two more polio cases; Total tally now 52
ISLAMABAD: At least two more cases of poliovirus were reported in Pakistan, taking the number of infections to 52 so far this year, a report said on Friday.
“The Regional Reference Laboratory for Polio Eradication at the National Institute of Health has confirmed the detection of two more wild poliovirus type 1 (WPV1) cases in Pakistan," an official statement said.
The fresh infections — a boy and a girl — were reported from the Dera Ismail Khan district of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province.
“Genetic sequencing of the samples collected from the children is underway," the statement read. Dera Ismail Khan, one of the seven polio-endemic districts of southern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, has reported five polio cases so far this year.
Of the 52 cases in the country this year, 24 are from Balochistan, 13 from Sindh, 13 from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, and one each from Punjab and Islamabad.
There is no cure for polio. Only multiple doses of the oral polio vaccine and completion of the routine vaccination schedule for all children under the age of five can keep them protected.
