New Delhi: A day after the Ahmedabad police booked at least 25 people on charges of rioting and assault when members of National Students Union of India (NSUI) said those affiliated to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) attacked them in Paldi area, the former’s general secretary Nikhil Savani has alleged that police are pressurising him to drop BYJM Gujarat president Rutvij Patel’s name from his complaint.
Savani, who is also a close aide of Congress leader Hardik Patel, was hospitalised for a head injury after he was hit on with an iron rod. According to a report in the Times of India, he has refused to sign a copy of the complaint he gave to the Paldi police.
“Police have been pressurizing me to drop the name of Rutvij Patel. Massive police deployment has been made outside VS Hospital, where I have been admitted. If police do not file FIR against the culprits, I will sit on dharna in front of the commissioner’s office,” Savani tweeted on Wednesday.
The NSUI has also alleged that the police are reluctant to include the names of Rutvij Patel and state unit BJP secretary Pradipsinh Vaghela in the FIR. The Congress’s youth wing has claimed that both Patel and Vaghela were present when Savani was thrashed outside the ABVP office in the Paldi area on Tuesday during a protest against the attack on JNU students and faculty members on January 5.
Also read: Ahmedabad: NSUI Says Its Activists ‘Brutally Attacked’ by ABVP Members
Four persons from both sides, including Savani, were injured in the clash.
While nobody has been arrested so far, a case been registered against 25 unidentified members of the ABVP and NSUI under sections 147 (rioting), 143 (unlawful assembly), 323 and 324 (assault) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on the complaint lodged by Paldi police station inspector BS Rabari.
Congress and NSUI leaders alleged that the VS Hospital administration was pressurising Savani to get discharged from the hospital.
“Savani had named Rutvij Patel and BJP leader Pradipsinh Vaghela, but the police are trying to convince us not to name them in the FIR,” said NSUI general secretary Bhavik Solanki. Gujarat Congress president Amit Chavda and a delegation of party leaders met Ahmedabad police commissioner Ashish Bhatia on Tuesday to demand the inclusion of Patel and Vaghela’s names in the FIR.
Videos that went viral on social media show alleged ABVP personnel beating up NSUI workers, even as police were present at the scene. However, Gujarat home minister Pradipsinh Jadeja claimed that it was the ABVP which was attacked.
According to a report in the Indian Express, leaders of the Ahmedabad Congress unit and NSUI were detained on Wednesday for demonstrating against the attack on JNU and later released in the evening.
Party leaders, who had earlier been granted permission to sit on a dharna, were detained after they raised slogans and released black balloons as a sign of protest.
Also read: JNU Attack: What the Delhi Police Has Done and What it Hasn’t
“This is completely unfair that no permissions are granted for silent protests in the city. ABVP and BJP are on an attacking spree, first in JNU and now in Ahmedabad. We want to ask the police if they are giving permission only for violence and not silent protests. They are acting as puppets in the hands of the government and curbing all voices of dissent,” Ahmedabad Congress president Prashant Patel said.