Several rallyists could be heard daring the students to step out of the campus. Some of them could be seen displaying sticks that had the lotus symbol wrapped around them to suggest what they would receive if the students dared to step out.
Team Clarion
NEW DELHI — The infamous “Goli Maro…” slogan, first raised ahead of the Delhi northeast riots in 2020, and several other rallying cries like “We will skin you” were heard during two separate rallies organised outside Jadavpur University in the West Bengal’s capital city of Kolkata on Friday evening.
The rallies — one by the RSS’s students’ wing and the other by the BJP’s youth brigade, were organised to press for a fair probe into the death of a first-year student at Jadavpur University.
The rallyists also hurled footwear and abuses in the direction of the campus.
The rally of the RSS students’ wing (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad), whose supporters were seen shouting “Goli Maro…”, could not move far beyond the starting point at Gol Park. Police stopped them, a report in The Telegraph said on Saturday.
The BJP youth brigade (Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha), which had Calcutta High Court’s permission to walk past the JU campus, dubbed it a den of “drunks and drug addicts”, dared the students to step out and hurled footwear at them.
Many students and teachers stood at the gates and saw the procession. A police officer said “thankfully” they did not respond to the provocation.
According to The Telegraph report, besides “Goli maro…” some of the other slogans heard at the rallies were:
* Maobadider galey galey, juto maro taley taley (hit the Maoists on their face with shoes in rhythm).”
* SFI-er chamra, gutiye debo aamra (We will skin the SFI)”
* Ei ganja-khor, drug-khor-der chamra, gutiye debo aamra (we will skin the drug addicts and drunks here)”
* Ek hi nara, ek hi naam, Jai Shri Ram Jai Shri Ram (There is only one name and only slogan, Hail Lord Ram Hail Lord Ram).”
Several rallyists could be heard daring the students to step out of the campus. Some of them could be seen displaying sticks that had the lotus symbol wrapped around them to suggest what they would receive if the students dared to step out.
Despite the provocation, students stood behind the campus gate complying with a request from the police. Some of the teachers stood guard at the gate to ensure that the students did not pick an argument with the protesters who were clearly trying to instigate them.
“We did not want to get into any provocation. So we remained inside. But in the name of protesting a death, they were threatening other students,” said a postgraduate student.
On 12 August, two days after the death of the first-year student at JU, who had allegedly been ragged, BJP supporters barged into the Jadavpur University campus to protest the death.
