Bhatkal: Over the last two weeks, students have been attending the college by wearing saffron shawls over their shoulders, at a government first grade college near Ranginkatte here at Bhatkal.
According to the sources, the students supported by some Hindu outfits have been attending college with saffron shawls since the last two-three weeks. The reason for this act is their protest against four Muslim guest lady lecturers coming to college wearing burqas.
With their minds polluted by some anti-communal organizations, they oppose the lecturers to wear burqas to the college even though there is no restriction in the dress code of the college about the clothes that can be worn by students and teaching staff.
An incident occurred at the college premises on 1st March, Wednesday, where a college student was thrashed-up by four fellow students for not wearing a saffron shawl to the college. The incident took an ugly turn and hence a police complaint was filed against the assaulters.
During the protest, some lecturers were also found wearing saffron shawls. It is said that the idea for protest drew inspiration from some provocative statements made by MP Anant Kumar Hegde.
The protesters stuck to their stand even after the taluk administration, police personnel and leaders of Namdhari community held a meeting with them to convince them not to give rise to any unwanted dispute by performing such acts. The students replied saying that they won’t relent until their demand is fulfilled.
Assistant Commissioner, M N Manjunath, had opined that everyone can wear any clothes of their desire as there is no particular dress code in the college. He also gave a warning that the guilty will be severely punished if the peace of the place gets disturbed by such unnecessary protests.
The students wearing saffron shawls have been bringing pressure on other students to join their protest and in this due course a BA degree fourth semester student of the college (Jayant Naik) was attacked and beaten up by four students (Abhishek, Raghavendra, Jeevan and Sandeep) for attending the college without a saffron shawl on his shoulder on Wednesday.
The case has been registered at the town police station and it would be interesting to see what turn this protest is going to take and what steps would be taken by the police personnel to settle this dispute.