Yet another attack in Mangalore

ABVP leaders rough up students collecting signatures in support of a lecturer who denounced the pub attack

ABVP leaders rough up students collecting signatures in support of a lecturer who denounced the pub attack

Harassed: Sadiq was beaten up because he went with a Hindu girl to a blood donation camp, while Ali is called Mr Terror for sporting a beard pics/S R Ramakrishna

Hindutva zealots roughed up college students collecting signatures yesterday in support of a lecturer who had opposed the Mangalore pub attack.

Mohammed Sadiq, a BBM student at College of Mangalore University, was threatened and assaulted when ABVP leaders found him going around with a petition urging fair treatment for Pattabhirama Somayaji, who teaches English and often champions the rights of the minorities.

"We have no help," Sadiq told MiD DAY over the phone. "The college authorities say they are under political pressure not to act against the assailants."

Somayaji had spoken out against the pub attack when a NDTV reporter went to the campus last week. Some students later complained to the principal that he had 'insulted' Hinduism in the course of the interview. That prompted the college to issue him a notice.

Blood camp

Sadiq has been at the receiving end of college ruffians for some time. He got bashed up recently when he returned to the campus after donating blood.

"I don't know what wrong I had committed," Sadiq had told MiD DAY last week. "A girl in our college said she wanted to come along, and we were going to the same camp anyway."

'We sometimes feel they don't want us to get an education'

His crime, according to his assailants, was that he had made the trip with a Hindu girl.

Sadiq travels an hour to get to college, but never goes to the bus stand alone these days. He is always with friends, some of whom are Hindus.

Daily taunts

Mohammed Ali, a commerce student in the same college, is tired of being called 'Ugrappa' (Mr Terror). "They call me that because I have a beard," he said.

Like most Muslims in Dakshina Kannada, Sadiq and Taizal speak fluent Tulu and Kannada, and for all practical purposes, would be indistinguishable from the average Hindu student.

Children of labourers, Sadiq and Ali are first generation literates. "We sometimes feel they don't want us to get an education," Sadiq said.

Boys on the campus who target those like Sadiq and Ali owe allegiance to the ABVP, the Sangh Parivar's students' wing. The assailants are supported by many in the present government, including Krishna Palemar, district in-charge minister, who has been urging the suspension of Somayaji. Palemar did not come on the line despite MiD DAY's persistent efforts to contact him.

Case for and against English lecturer
Ravichandra P M, state secretary of the ABVP, denied his organisation was behind the incident. "We have not assaulted anybody. But what Somayaji is doing is wrong.

Being a lecturer, his job is to teach, but he is irking the sentiments of the Hindus," he told MiD DAY.

Ravichandra said many in Mangalore, including students, were against Somayaji. "The ABVP is not protesting against him, but students of all colleges are," he said.

A lecturer, who asked not to be named, was not convinced with thisu00a0 argument. "The Sangh Parivar is trying to saffronise the college and any efforts to oppose them attracts this kind of reaction," he said. He described the attack on students yesterday as "vandalism" that must be stopped. "The real worry is that the government and the district minister are supporting them," he said.