Aligarh/Lucknow, May 2: Violence broke out at the Aligarh Muslim University campus Wednesday as the row over Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s portrait on the campus triggered a right-wing protest and sparring between two BJP leaders.
At least six people were injured when the police lobbed teargas shells to disperse AMU students, demanding the arrest of protesters who had earlier barged into the campus shouting slogans.
Hospital sources said about 20 students were treated with injuries, though a university official gave the lower number. A function to grant life membership of the student union to former vice president Hamid Ansari, scheduled for this evening, was called off and he returned to Delhi.
The AMU students alleged that the protesters were from Hindu Yuva Vahini, and were allowed to leave a police station even after being initially detained. Earlier Wednesday, a BJP MP demanded the expulsion of Uttar Pradesh Labour Minister Swami Prasad Maurya from the party for praising Jinnah, which the minister denied he ever did.
Media reports had said that the minister called Jinnah a `mahapurush’ (a great personality) from the time of undivided India. Maurya reportedly praised him when asked to comment on the row sparked by another BJP MP Satish Gautam, who had objected to Jinnah’s portrait being displayed at AMU.
The minister told reporters Wednesday that he had not made any statement even as Harnath Singh Yadav, a Rajya Sabha member from his own party, targeted him. “Government minister Swami Prasad Maurya who had called Muhammad Ali Jinnah – a heinous criminal who trifurcated the country – a great personality should retract his statement, apologise or be immediately removed from the party,” Yadav tweeted in Hindi. But when asked by reporters to clarify his remarks on Jinnah, Maurya said in Unnao that the media was wrong.
“Koi bayaan nahi hai, yeh bayaan aap log baat ka batangar bana ke badhaate hai (There was no statement. You are making a mountain of a molehill),” he said. Yadav had also tagged his anti-Maurya tweet to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, BJP chief Amit Shah, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, UP BJP chief Mahendra Nath and party leader Sunil Bansal. The Rajya Sabha MP from UP said in another tweet, “The photograph of Jinnah who trifurcated India can be put up at AMU but Bharat Mata ki Jai, Vandemataram cannot be said.”
