Judicial inquiry initiated to probe BHU violence: UP Minister

Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Shrikant Sharma on Tuesday asserted that a judicial inquiry has been initiated to probe the Banaras Hindu University (BHU) violence case.

Sharma said that though the culprits have not been indentified till now, but it is been speculated that the guilty were not from the college.

"Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has taken this situation very seriously. Judicial inquiry has been ordered. Commissioner and ADG are probing the matter. Magistrate is also taking stock of the situation," Sharma told ANI.

"People indulge in this incident has not yet been identified. As soon as the girls will come back in the campus, we will talk to them," he added.

Sharma also said that the government have ordered to install a CCTV camera in the college campus, so that such incidents are not repeated in future.

Earlier in the day, Varanasi Commissioner Nitin Gokarn submitted a preliminary report to Uttar Pradesh Chief Secretary Rajiv Kumar over the BHU clash and blamed the university administration for not handling the matter in a sensitive manner.

Gokarn, in his report, said that the BHU neither dealt with the victim's complaint in a sensitive manner nor handled the situation on time.

Yesterday, the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) office in Varanasi confirmed that an FIR was registered against 1000 BHU students in Lanka police station for arson and other charges.

On September 24, Congress leaders P.L. Punia, Raj Babbar and Ajay Rai were detained by the police, ahead of their participation in the students' protest march at BHU.

The Uttar Pradesh Police on Saturday lathi-charged the BHU students, who were protesting since three days against alleged molestation of a University girl.

It was reported that the protesting students tried to enter the residence of the vice chancellor and when the deployed security forces tried to stop them, students became violent; it is then when the security forces used lathi-charged to disperse them.

The students alleged that the police thrashed them and dragged them by hair, but DM Varanasi, who was present on the spot, denied all such claims.

The ongoing protests outside the BHU campus triggered when a first-year female student of BHU alleged that she was molested by three bike-borne men outside the campus on Thursday.

The victim in the matter had claimed that she went to the university administration for complaining about the incident but the administration in lieu of taking any action against the molesters, shamed the victim for her awkward hostel timings.

Angered over the laid back attitude of the administration and lack of action from the side, the students staged protests outside the campus on Friday and blocked entry to the campus through the main gate.