New Delhi, Oct 4: Tensions erupted at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Thursday after the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) burnt an effigy of Ravana featuring the faces of jailed student activists Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam, prompting condemnation from the JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU).
The effigy was set alight during Dasara celebrations on the campus at the call of Vaibhav Meena, JNUSU’s joint secretary and the sole ABVP representative on the four-member student panel.
In a statement, the remaining JNUSU office-bearers accused the ABVP, the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), of promoting “politics of hate” and urged students to isolate “forces dividing society on communal lines.”
“Umar Khalid and Sharjeel Imam have been incarcerated for the last five years and are still under trial. Their bail pleas have been rejected multiple times on flimsy grounds,” the union said, calling for symbolic protests against the ABVP.
Defending the act, Meena said the effigy represented “Naxalism, Leftism, Maoist violence, and anti-national ideologies,” and that the portrayal of Khalid and Imam was part of a broader depiction of Ravana’s multiple heads. Khalid and Imam, both former JNU students, have been in jail since 2020 under charges including sedition and conspiracy in connection with protests and riots in Delhi.
