Anti-Brahmin slogans on JNU walls; ABVP accuse left of vandalisation

New Delhi: A day after several walls in the Jawaharlal Nehru University were defaced with anti-Brahmin slogans, the teacher and student bodies on Friday urged the varsity administration to conduct a "free and fair enquiry" to ensure peace on the campus.

Students had earlier claimed that the walls in the School of International Studies- II building were vandalised with slogans against Brahmin and Baniya communities.

The graffiti asked members of the Brahmin and the Baniya communities to leave the campus and the country. In a statement, the JNU teachers association said it is distressing to hear about such acts of vandalism.

"The JNUTA condemns in the strongest possible terms this extremely reprehensible act, which is not only traumatic for the faculty concerned but it violates the spirit of diversity and tolerance of all views that is the core ethos of JNU," the statement read.

The JNUTA asked the university administration to immediately launch a probe into the incident, identify the culprits, and proceed against them by university rules.

Some of the slogans on the walls read "Brahmins Leave The Campus", "There Will Be Blood", "Brahmin Bharat Chhodo" and "Brahmino-Baniyas" The JNU administration had said such incidents will not be tolerated.

The School of International Studies and Grievances Committee has been asked to inquire and submit a report to Vice Chancellor Santishree D Pandit at the earliest, it had said.

The JNU students' union claimed that this was not the first time that these acts have been committed in JNU.  "Such statements are clearly meant to disturb the normalcy of the campus by vitiating the campus environment. This is not the first time that such vandalism has occurred within the university. Several instances have happened during previous years," the JNUSU said in the statement.

The JNUSU alleged that right wing forces have "tried historically to caricature claims to social justice in such a deplorable manner." RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) accused the left of the vandalisation.