 "Siddharth Varadarajan")
The Editors Guild of India has condemned the intimidation of Siddharth Varadarajan, editor of The Wire, by members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) in Allahabad University.
Varadarajan was invited to deliver a lecture by the president of the university students' union on Wednesday, but he said the permission was withdrawn by the vice-chancellor after students belonging to the ABVP threatened violence.
Varadarajan delivered the lecture at a hall near the campus and when he went to meet the vice-chancellor in his office, the ABVP surrounded the exit. The police had to escort him out. The Editors Guild described the incident as an expression of mob mentality to silence those with divergent views.
In a separate incident, the Gujarat police have arrested Naroda Patiya convict Suresh Chhara for attacking former journalist-turned-social activist Revati Laul. Laul was allegedly attacked by Chhara in Ahmedabad on Wednesday when she was interviewing him in connection with a book she is writing on convicts in the 2002 Naroda Patiya massacre case. "I was asking him if he wanted to share information about himself, his past, family. After five minutes, he stood up and came towards me, then he started beating me," Laul told ANI. She later lodged a police complaint.
