The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Professor attacked in class; tension in college

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Feb 16, 2005

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Professor attacked in class; tension in college

By Our Staff Reporter

V.S. Sridhar who was beaten up in class by some youths and at right, students of Vijaya College staging a protest against the attack in Bangalore on Tuesday. — Photo: V. Sreenivasa Murthy

BANGALORE, FEB. 15. A group of youths claiming to belong to the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) allegedly attacked V.S. Sridhar, a professor at Vijaya College in Jayanagar in the Siddapura Police Station limits on Tuesday.

The police said Prof. Sridhar was taking class when he received an SMS on his cellphone saying he would be attacked for supporting naxalite activities in the State.

(Prof. Sridhar is the convenor of the Citizens' Initiative for Peace, which recently criticised the encounter in which naxal leader, Saketh Rajan alias Prem, and another youth were killed in Chikmagalur district.)

Within a few minutes, the group of youths, said to be students of Vijaya Law College located on the same campus, entered the class and asked Prof. Sridhar to stop the class.

They reportedly told him that they were there to protest against his alleged support to naxalites.

When he told them that they could protest only outside the college premises, they allegedly attacked him with slippers.

When a few girls attending his class tried to rescue him the attackers pushed and pulled them around.

They then fled the scene. Prof. Sridhar was immediately taken to the chamber of the college's principal.

There was tension on the college premises with students, including those belonging to the ABVP, boycotting classes and staging a demonstration demanding that the culprits be arrested. The police promised them action.

Prof. Sridhar has lodged a complaint with the Siddapura Police and has sought police protection. The police have booked a case.

Later, Prof. Sridhar said he was not supporting naxalite activities.

He said he was supporting only the cause of the poor and the downtrodden, which some students had mistaken as support to naxalites.

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