Vivek Agnihotri's 'Buddha In A Traffic Jam' triggers clashes at Jadavpur varsity

KolkataJadavpur University was on the boil on Friday over the campus screening of Vivek Agnihotris film Buddha In A Traffic Jam that faced loud protests from a large section of students and led to clashesAlleging that four of the organisers had molested female students the leftleaning students affiliated to FETSU confined them inside the campus and resorted to sloganeering and brandished posters saying ABVP go back RSS go back down with FascismTension increased after dusk as activists of the Bharatiya Janata Party and RSSaffiliated student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad collected outside the varsity gate and raised slogans demanding the four be rescued and handed over to themBJPs actressturnedleader Rupa Ganguly filed a complaint at the Jadavpur police station that the four people invited for the screening of the awardwinning film were beaten up and wrongly confined on a false accusationThey staged a demonstration at the police station and then rushed to the universityWe have come to take the four of our invitees safely home They have been beaten up They are in a bad condition We will wait for ten minutes And then our people will take one minute to climb the gates and enter the campus said BJP leader Debasree ChowdhuryAs the situation threatened to go out of control with a huge collapsible gate separating the belligerent BJPABVP activists and the students Vice Chancellor Suranjan Das rushed to the varsity in a taxi and pleaded with the two sides to maintain peace and see reasonDas met the students a number of times but his attempts to bring the four out failed twice He finally succeeded on his third attempt as the registrar and other officials with the help of the security personnel brought them out of the campusThree ABVP activists and a professor of Bangabasi College were confined One of the activists was senseless Three have been hospitalised said ABVP state secretary Souvik HaldarWe have filed a case seeking those who tortured and confined them be punished We will expect action We will organise a movement on this issue he addedThe screening organised by a group Think India backed by theABVP was scheduled at the varsitys Triguna Sen auditorium but the universitys alumni association cancelled the screening on Friday morning citing poll code violationDespite the protests and cancellation an openair screening was held in the varsitys football grounds close to the auditoriumHowever the varsitys assistant registrar requested the showing be stopped said Agnihotri who was shown black flags by the studentsWe started the screening and I asked the leader of the protest to have a cup of tea with me Then the assistant registrar came from somewhere and asked us to stop the screening I dont know what kind of a university it is they cant even decide whether the film can be shown or not shown Agnihotri told IANSAsked why there were protests against his film Agnihotri said Because for the first time in 70 years somebody has dared to expose the Naxalacademiaintellectualsmedia nexusBut the protesting students said Preaching divisiveness and Hindu fundamentalism should not be allowed on the campusOn the other hand the organisers drew attention to the simultaneous screening of Nakul Singh Sawhneys controversial documentary Muzaffarnagar Abhi Baki Hai inside the campus a stones throw away from the Buddha screeningInspired by Agnihotris own life Buddha In A Traffic Jam deals with corruption and Maoism in a business school The film features actors Mahie Gill Aanchal Dwivedi Pallavi Joshi Anupam Kher Arunoday Singh and Vivek VaswaniThe film had attracted controversy earlier when its screening was sought to be cancelled at Jawaharlal Nehru University due to the volatile atmosphere there in the wake of the sedition charges levelled against some studentsHowever the film was later screened on campus with Kher a critic of the students agitation in attendance