‘Targeted Due to My Hijab’: Protesters Allege Hate Crimes by ABVP

The Quint spoke to the students of Delhi University who allege ABVP members made ‘targeted attacks’. 

(Photo: The Quint)

Video Editor: Kunal Mehra

A day after clashes between Delhi Police and students shook Jamia Millia Islamia, protests reached University of Delhi on Monday, 16 December.

Agitation at DU’s North Campus began at Faculty of Social Science, with several students reportedly taking a decision to boycott examinations and to hold a protest in solidarity with their fraternity at Jamia and Aligarh Muslim University. However, unrest erupted quite soon as students alleged that members of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) stirred trouble.

The Quint spoke with two women who allege that women members of ABVP targeted them as they were clad in hijabs.

22-year-old Iqra, an MA student, told The Quint, “While walking from the Arts Faculty gate to just ten steps ahead in the presence of heavy, armed policemen and troops, I am conscious of seven people following me. One of them is a woman and six are men. Maybe we might have moved ten steps further and reached the Law Faculty gate. That’s when I hear the woman say, ‘I’ll handle her’. And I realise it immediately and I turn back to run and save myself because I know we are clearly outnumbered. But before I can run, they beat me. I went to the police and asked them why they didn’t help. They said they were looking at the protest site and I was not at the protest site, I was walking home.”

Rubeena, a 19-year-old, said that women wearing a hijab were targeted and attacked in DU’s Arts Faculty, claiming that members of ABVP were keeping track of those wearing a hijab and that she is faced with the threat of being attacked if she steps out, “ABVP people are targeting people wearing a hijab so they might have recorded me. I wear hijab all the time. So if I go out, there is a chance of being attacked,” she said.

Rubeena had gone to the protest with her friend Saeed. In a viral clip, ABVP members can be seen intimidating him.

“Yesterday, around 3:00 pm, my friend was going to Arts Faculty to join the protest against CAA. A few men approached Saeed. They questioned him, beat him up and asked him to say he supports CAA. When he denied to do that, they asked the police to arrest him.”

Rubeena*, Student, DU

‘They Want to Silence Us’

“After Partition, our grandparents did not choose to go precisely for a reason – they felt this country belonged to them. They didn’t believe in the idea of a theocratic state. And if we feel this isn’t our country, then we will be betraying are forefathers as well.”

Iqra, Student, DU