New Delhi: Protesting the arrest of Republic TV’s editor-in-chief Arnab Goswami, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad torched the effigies of Maharashtra government members at Delhi University’s North Campus and Jawaharlal Nehru University on Wednesday.
“ABVP believes that such motivated, vindictive and discriminatory action against a dissenting voice is tantamount to an undeclared attack on the fundamental values of Indian democracy,” the right-wing student organisation said via a statement.
The students condemned the move and called it the “shabby politics of the ruling coalition of Maharashtra that has used the state government resources to settle scores against those to democratically criticise it”.
“In what became a reminiscence of the Emergency period, the Maharashtra Government in its latest spree of disgracing democracy has physically assaulted and manhandled journalist Arnab Goswami and his family members at his residence to solve political vendetta. The Mumbai Police also arrested Arnab Goswami in a case that was amicably solved earlier. This attack on press freedom and freedom of speech reminds us of the British Raj and cannot be tolerated,” the official statement from the ABVP JNU unit read.
“Our generation has never seen the period of Emergency that was imposed by Indira Gandhi, but today attempts have been made to suppress free press through the arrest of Arnab Goswami. His arrest shows us how the state is misusing its power. He was also heckled by the police while being taken into custody from his residence. We demand immediate release of the journalist or we have plans to conduct protests nationwide,” ABVP-JNU president Shivam Chaurasia was quoted as saying by EdexLive.