Police used force to disperse and round up a group of about 40 FTII students protesting in Pune against TV actor and BJP member Gajendra Chauhan took charge as the institute’s Chairman on Thursday.
Notwithstanding a warning issued by police on Wednesday to maintain peace on the eve of the first meeting of the new FTII Society headed by Chauhan, members of FTII Students Federation (FSA) staged a protest demonstration at the institute’s gate shouting “Gajendra Chauhan go back” which led to a scuffle between the students and police.
“We have been brutally targeted by police who lathi-charged us with the knowledge of FTII administration,” alleged one of the students as he was put in a police van and whisked away.
“We had asked the students to demonstrate peacefully but we had to use force because they wanted to block the way to the institute and therefore we had to detain them. We used minimum force,” Tushar Joshi, Deputy Commissioner of Police, said.
#FTII students getting beaten up 4 protesting peacefully.Last I remember #India was a democracy. Maybe, I’m living in a time-lapse.
— Priyanjali Narain (@priyanjali_n) January 7, 2016Police lathicharging students anywhere, much less inside an edu campus, us utterly shameful and unacceptable. #FTII
— Arnab (@arnab822) January 7, 2016Way our students r getting lathicharged & suppresedshows how BJP does things when they r in power. #FTII #PoliceBrutalityOnFTII
— msgpahujaa (@MaanmohanSingh) January 7, 2016Then there were those who said the students should have behaved better:
Dear #FTII students,Why don’t you concentrate on your course rather than doing this ‘drama’ against a principal’s appointment?
— Cricket Baba (@Arch_Warrior) January 7, 2016Students must understand that #FTII unka baap ki jagir nahi he. They dnt own the institution.
— Nikhil Karampuri (@nikhilkarampuri) January 7, 2016
