UP: College students booked for sedition; principal alleges they raised anti-national slogans
Ayodhya: Six students of a college here were booked for sedition after its principal lodged a complaint accusing them of raising "anti-national slogans" during a protest on the institute's campus, police said on Monday.
The students of Saket Degree College allegedly raised the slogans during a demonstration on December 16 against the non-conduct of students' union elections.
In his police complaint, Principal N D Pandey said that the students had raised "anti-national" slogans such as "Azaadi le ke Rahenge". He also named the students in his complaint, police said.
The students, however, denied the allegations, saying they were demanding "Azaadi (freedom)" from a corrupt principal and an anti-student system of the college.
On the principal's complaint, police have booked Sumit Tiwari, Shesh Narayan Pandey, Imran Hashmi, Satvik Pandey, Mohit Yadav, and Manoj Mishra.
They have been booked under sections 124 A (sedition), 147 (rioting), 188 (disobedience to order ), 332 (causing hurt to deter public servant from duty), 342 (wrongfully confinement), 353 (assault on public servant), 427 (causing damage to property), 435 (mischief by fire or explosive substance) and 506 (offence of criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code, police said.
"The students were raising slogans of 'Azaadi' and they wanted to take 'Azaadi' by revolt and by violence. They were raising the slogans, they were trying to burn the nation, and were creating violence. To protect the motherland is my duty and I have filed the complaint against the students," Pandey told PTI.
However, former student union president Abhas Krishna Yadav said the students were raising "Azaadi slogans as they were demanding 'Azaadi' from a corrupt principal and an anti-student system of the college".
They were demanding that the student union elections be held, said Abhas Yadav, a student of the Saket Degree College.
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Two injuries, one DNF, a DQ as India end messy World Relays campaign
Gaborone (Botswana) (PTI): Amoj Jacob and Ragul Kumar got injured during the men's 4x400m and 4x100 races respectively as India ended their World Athletics Relays campaign in disappointment on the second day of competitions here on Sunday.
The Indian camp had high hopes of making the 2027 World Championships in the men's 4x400m relay but the team did not finish (DNF) the race as Jacob suffered cramps and pulled out of the race after taking the baton from the first leg runner Dharamveer Choudhary. Rajesh Ramesh and Vishal TK were to run in the third and fourth legs.
Those teams which could not qualify for the 2027 Beijing World Championships by reaching the final round of each of the six relay events on Saturday were given another chance in the second qualification round on Sunday.
The top two teams in each of the two heats (in all six relay events) booked the Beijing ticket on Sunday.
India will now have to try and qualify for the World Championships through the Top Lists of the World Athletics, which is a long and tedious process.
In the men's 4x100m race, third leg runner Ragul Kumar fell down the track after failing to hand over the baton inside the exchange zone to fourth leg runner Gurindervir Singh, which clearly showed the lack of coordination among the runners.
Harsh Santosh Raut and Animesh Kujur ran the first two legs.
The Indian quartet was disqualified and Kumar was seen being taken away from the Field of Play with the help of the volunteers.
It was a comedy of errors in the case of the women's 4x100m race, which saw the baton being dropped during an exchange between first leg runner Tamanna and second runner Nithya Gandhe, though the Indians finished the race in 53.09 seconds.
Gandhe started running quite a distance, but after realising that the baton was not in her hand, she turned and ran back to pick it up.
The only silver-lining for the Indian contingent was the national record time in the mixed 4x100m relay race, though the quartet of Ragul Kumar, Nithya Gandhe, Animesh Kujur and Sneha SS finished sixth in heat number two with a time of 41.35 seconds, bettering the previous national mark of 42.30 seconds set in March in Chandigarh.
The mixed 4x400m relay quartet of Theerthesh P Shetty, Kumari Saloni, Nihal William and Rashdeep Kaur ended at fifth in heat number one with a time of 3 minutes and 19.40 seconds.
On Saturday, all the five Indian relay teams had failed to make it to the respective final rounds and thus missed out on the 2027 World Championships berths.
