Centre crushing dissent: Congress on police action on students

Condemning the police action against student protestors in national capital, the Congress on Monday blamed the Centre for turning apathetic towards the voice of students and indulging in crushing dissent.

A video released on Monday on social media showed policemen in uniform and in plain clothes lathi-charging students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University staging a protest over the suicide by Dalit research scholar Rohith Vemula in Hyderabad.

"On a video widely doing the rounds of the social media, Delhi Police under the central government are seen brutally assaulting a silent protest by students of various Dalit organisations in front of the RSS headquarters," Congress spokesperson Abhishek Manu Singhvi said.

"The policemen did not even spare women supporters. They are seen mindlessly pulling the hair of women students. We would like to put this on record that this government has become completely apathetic towards the voice of students in addition to being anti-Dalit and anti-poor. They have time and again indulged in crushing dissent."

"The Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP) government and Prime Minister Narendra Modi are indulging in the worst kind of fascism and autocratic behaviour," he said.

"This insane targeting and crushing dissent by using state machinery will not go down well with the youth of this country and we caution the Modi government to exercise restraint, otherwise more passions will ignite."