On Friday, March 21, Delhi Police arrested Jamia Millia Islamia student Hazrat Parwana in connection with a scuffle that broke out during Diwali in October 2024, allegedly instigated by ABVP-YUVA Jamia, a Hindu right-wing group.
Hazrat, a third-year undergraduate student of Sanskrit and a leader of the student wing of the All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM), was arrested from Gate No. 18 of the university after he attended an iftar gathering and was taken to Jamia Nagar Police Station. “He was mistreated, abused, and beaten, before being shifted to Tihar Jail in the morning,” said Saurabh, a student activist and PhD scholar associated with AISA.
Hazrat’s brother and legal team had filed for anticipatory bail a day before his arrest, but due to logistical issues, it was initially rejected. Late on Saturday night, he was released after securing a bail from a Delhi court.
On Saturday, March 22, student organizations staged a protest inside the campus in the evening, condemning what they described as Hazrat Parwana’s “illegal arrest.” The Jamia administration shut off the lights during the demonstration, a move students called the varsity’s old “reactionary tactic to suppress dissent.”
The case in which Hazrat was arrested traces back to the evening of October 22, 2024, on Diwali. The Rashtriya Kala Manch (RKM), a wing of the RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), had organized a rangoli-making event at the university.
“While they were making rangoli, outsiders affiliated with ABVP—senior BJP leaders, RSS cadres, and Bhanu Pratap Singh, who contested in the Delhi University Students’ Union election last year—trespassed into the campus. The administration neither checked their ID cards nor responded promptly,” said Anjan Azad, a student activist and member of AIRSO.
ABVP invited outsiders through Gate No. 7, endangering student safety and triggering a scuffle as they created chaos on campus, disrupted campus harmony, and provoked Jamia students.
“They raised slogans of Jai Shree Ram and lit firecrackers inside the campus while azaan was going on, deliberately provoking students,” Anjan said.
He added that the slogan Jai Shree Ram has been “weaponized by Hindutva acolytes in every Hindu-Muslim pogrom”. “It is used in the context of RSS’s terroristic violence. When organizations affiliated with it raise the same slogan, it exposes the same intent, the same agenda,” he said.
Subsequently, an FIR was registered under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), 2023, invoking Section 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) and Section 3(5) (joint criminal liability for individuals acting with a common intention). Yet, no action was taken against those responsible for the violence. The FIR named 32 people—all the students booked were Muslims. The complainant alleged that Hazrat Parwana was the “main conspirator.”
Filed on October 25 by Rahul Tiwari of the Jamia Millia Alumni Association of Minorities (JMI AAM), the complaint accused Hazrat and others of “disrupting prayers, vandalizing rangoli designs, and destroying lit diyas, showing utter disregard for the sanctity of the occasion and the cultural sentiments of those involved” during Diwali celebrations on campus.
The complaint further claimed that the students “raised slogans like ‘Allahu Akbar’ and ‘Palestine Zindabad,’ attacked and threatened them, warning them never to celebrate any Hindu festival on campus.”
Anjan told The Observer Post that some Jamia students had resisted ABVP’s sloganeering of Jai Shree Ram, and responded with chants of Allahu Akbar and Palestine Zindabad, during the protest. “The Godi Media spun this into a venomous propaganda campaign, demonizing Jamia’s Muslim students,” he said.
He further alleged that the administration deliberately singled out Hazrat. “They made him the conspirator in front of Delhi Police, targeting him specifically, while conveniently claiming ignorance about who else was involved,” he said.
‘Saffron’s rising grip On Jamia‘
Two days before Hazrat’s arrest, ABVP in Jamia organized an iftar party, attended by Jamia’s Vice-Chancellor, Asif Mazhar, who is known for his close ties with the RSS. Several students pointed to the growing affinity between the university administration and the Sangh, calling it “a campaign to legitimize Hindutva outfits in a democratic campus—especially in a minority institution that is constantly under attack.”
The recent targeting of Jamia students in February was followed by an official notice banning protests on campus—one of the very issues students were protesting against before being targeted, stripping them of their right to dissent. Jamia’s protest ban mirrored a similar crackdown at Osmania University on March 13, as the University banned protests in the premises.
During the February protests, 17 students were suspended after being detained at 4 AM while they were asleep at the protest site inside the campus. The next day, the Jamia administration brazenly posted their personal information—alongside photos and names—at Gate No. 7.
On March 4, the Delhi High Court stayed the suspension of the students. “All the students are of tender age and went to the university to certainly make an endeavour to raise their voice within the framework of law,” the Court said, affirming that participating in a peaceful protest was their democratic right.
Speaking to The Observer Post, a student, requesting anonymity, said, “The Diwali incident was instigated and communalized by RSS-ABVP goons. Hazrat is unjustly incarcerated in Tihar Jail,” adding, “This follows the pattern of minority intimidation and repression that the Hindutva fascist state continues to unleash on the Muslim community and within university spaces.”
Another student added, “The criminalization of Muslim student voices is central to the Hindutva project—shutting down all voices of resistance while right-wing Hindutva forces are given a free hand to walk free.”
This pattern of attacks on campus has been described as a revenge strategy to further demonize students. In a statement, AIRSO Jamia condemned the crackdown: “It is shameful to see the revenge tactics used by the Jamia administration-state nexus to spread Islamophobic hate within the student community and fuel the fascist propaganda machine that treats Muslims as enemy no. 1. On the other hand, the Indian judiciary, which justifies the shouting of Jai Shree Ram in mosques and university spaces while criminalizing slogans by Muslims, makes its fascist takeover evident.”
“Arrest follows the resistance of Jamia students“
Hazrat’s arrest sparked widespread outrage, with student organizations, including Fraternity Movement, MSF, SFI, NSUI, SIO, AIRSO, AISF, AISA, CRJD, Disha, DISSC, MSV, MSW, SFD and United Students of Jamia condemning the arrest.
The Fraternity Movement demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Parwana, calling the arrest “unjust” and alleging that he is “incarcerated in Tihar jail over the Diwali ruckus created by ABVP-YUVA-RSS on the Jamia campus.”
“Democracy in India is a myth when dissent means jail and Muslim identity means persecution,” they said, urging authorities to “Stop the selective attack on Muslim students. Down with Hindutva repression.”
The Students’ Federation of India (SFI) Jamia Millia Islamia condemned the arrest, stating, “Despite this clear violation of campus security, the RSS-backed Jamia administration has taken no action against YUVA Jamia-ABVP members, who endangered student safety and disrupted campus harmony. Instead, the administration is targeting students who dared to speak out against this incident.”
“This is not an isolated case,” they said, highlighting the Jamia administration’s recent suspension of 17 students for protesting against its suppression of campus democracy.
The All India Students’ Association (AISA) Jamia stated, “The perpetrators of violence from the ABVP-RSS-BJP roam free while Muslim students are selectively targeted!”
“The real perpetrators of the disturbance at Diwali were invited by the ABVP into our campus, but neither the Jamia admin nor the Delhi Police has shown any interest in the rule of law and has instead opted for the criminalization of Muslim student Hazrat Parwana,” alleged AISA.
“The recent unjust arrest of Hazrat Parwana has once again brought to light how the ABVP-admin nexus provides impunity to perpetrators of violence from the Sangh, while Muslim students are selectively punished,” they said.
Hazrat Parwana was among those detained in February when Delhi Police arrested several Jamia Millia Islamia students protesting against the administration’s show-cause notices and demanding the revocation of a repressive memorandum restricting meetings, gatherings, protests, and slogans on campus without prior approval.
“The Campus Militarization“
A clear pattern has emerged in recent times—the militarization of campuses through heightened surveillance, police deployment, brutal crackdowns on students, suppression of democratic resistance, and punitive action against those who dare to speak against injustice.
“Why does the Delhi Police illegally enter the campus to target students? Whether it was during the CAA-NRC protests, when they brutally attacked students, or the recent movement, when students were illegally detained at midnight?” Saurabh asks.
He pointed to a similar pattern in Nagpur. “All 51 people implicated in the recent Nagpur violence were Muslims. The violence was instigated by Hindutva goons who burned the Quran, ravaged properties, and unleashed assaults—yet they were protected and given legitimacy. Here in Jamia, too, Muslim students were booked under an FIR, while nothing happened to the organizers who escalated the tension,” he said.
“This is how the state’s brutal Hindutva agenda is attacking Muslim students and those who resist the Hindutva fascist project,” Saurabh told The Observer Post.
This underscores a clear pattern of campus militarization—seen in Jamia, where a former Delhi Police official was appointed chief security advisor, and in Delhi University, where routine surveillance and heavy police deployment have become the norm.
“Delhi University is heavily barricaded, with police cars patrolling the campus and detaining students who protest against anti-student or anti-people policies. Meanwhile, RSS shakhas and programs are held regularly under administrative protection. Saffronization and militarization go hand in hand, with university administrations acting as RSS puppets. The syllabus itself has become a tool for indoctrinating youth with Brahmanical Hindutva fascist ideology. Students are attacked simply for exercising their constitutional right to dissent,” said Rudra, a Bachelor’s student in Philosophy at DU, speaking to The Observer Post.
A similar crackdown unfolded in Banaras Hindu University (BHU). On December 25, 2024, students of the Bhagat Singh Morcha (BSM) organized a reading session at the Arts Faculty, only to face immediate retaliation from the university administration and the police. Several students were arrested and jailed for 13 days.
The reading session marked Manusmriti Dahan Divas, commemorating the day in 1927 when Dr. B.R. Ambedkar publicly burned the Manusmriti, calling it a Brahminical project designed to enforce violence against Dalits, women, and oppressed communities.
“The Modi government’s attack on student activists has escalated in recent times—especially in minority institutions like Jamia, where this has become a serious issue. The entry of police and paramilitary forces into the campus has been normalized. How can they storm an educational institution and attack students? Rapists, genocidal maniacs, and criminals sit in Parliament while the state’s forces attack students simply for demanding the rights guaranteed to them by law,” said Gurkirat, a member of BSCEM, a student organization based in Delhi University.
However, BJP is not alone in suppressing student rights. In West Bengal, ruled by the TMC, a shocking incident unfolded when Education Minister Bratya Basu was confronted by students at Jadavpur University demanding student union elections—which have not been held for five years. As the minister’s car sped away, it ran over a student activist, who suffered severe injuries to his head, hands, and legs.
In Jamia, attempts to incite communal polarization have intensified. “The Diwali incident was a planned and organized ploy to instigate communal divide on campus. This is part of a larger pattern to dismantle democratic spaces, weaponize institutions against minorities and dissenters, and push the Brahmanical-fascist agenda of the state,” said Anjan.
Jamia has faced systematic repression since the CAA-NRC protests of 2020. Since then, the state has kept the university in its crosshairs—seeking to eliminate its democratic spaces and “transform it into an authoritarian, militarized campus where students are stripped of their right to speak.”
“Every time students gather to raise democratic demands, resist oppression, or stand against injustice, we witness massive deployments of police, CRPF, riot control vehicles, and detention vans,” Anjan said.
He pointed to the crackdown in 2023 on students protesting the censorship of the BBC documentary that “exposed Modi’s role in the 2002 Gujarat pogrom”, when several students were detained outside the campus while trying to enter through the gates—before they had even joined the protest.
(Syed Affan is a writer and Journalist based in Delhi. His reportage focuses on Human rights, land conflicts, and policy)
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