Two persons were arrested today in the attack on the office of Vikram University Vice Chancellor Jawaharal Kaul who was also manhandled by suspected workers of VHP and Bajrang Dal protesting his appeal in connection with the devastating floods in Jammu and Kashmir.
Kaul had appealed to people in the state who had rented out their homes to Kashmiri students not to press for payment of rent for some time in the wake of the devastating flood situation in their state. He had also spoken in favour of waiving off fees of those students.
He had to be hospitalised after he felt "uneasy" following the incident in Ujjain yesterday. He was discharged today, a police officer said.
Though the ransacking of the VC's office is suspected to be have been carried out by saffron workers, police did not disclose the identity of two arrested persons.
"Taking the matter seriously, police have apprehended two persons involved in the incident," Inspector General (IG), Ujjain Range, Madhu Kumar said.
"A total of 20-25 persons have been identified by the police on the basis of video footage and newspaper reports and soon all of them would be apprehended," he added.
The incident occurred when the suspected activists of VHP/Bajrang Dal vandalised Kaul's office and also misbehaved with him. The workers also asked Kaul to withdraw his appeal.
However, Kaul's statement angered saffron workers who questioned why people like him did not issue similar statements when floods hit Uttarakhand and Gujarat, Madhav Nagar's Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Vijay Kumar Dawar said.
It may be recalled that Professor H S Sabharwal died of cardiac arrest in Ujjain after he was allegedly manhandled by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) workers in August 2006.
However, the court acquitted all those who were arrested by the police in connection with the incident.
The incident yesterday prompted the opposition Congress to slam the Shivraj Singh Chouhan government for "not doing enough to rein in the saffron workers", with senior party leader K K Mishra terming the incident as a "blot on the age-old teacher-pupil relationship."
The Leader of Opposition in state Assembly, Satyadev Katare said the attack is akin to defiance of the state government's stand to help students from J and K.
"On the one hand the state government issues a circular directing all Registrars of universities to help Kashmiri students by extending deadlines for depositing necessary fees while on the other hand the VHP/Bajrang Dal workers are misbehaving with a Vice Chancellor and ransacking his office," Katare told PTI in Bhopal.
The state government's higher education department had issued a circular on September 11, directing all the Registrars to help Kashmiri students in view of the worst floods to hit the state in a century.
