GNDU students demand release of jailed activists Nodeep Kaur and Disha Ravi

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, February 17

Students of different departments of GNDU on Wednesday raised their voice of dissent against the arrest of farmers and political activists during a march took out on the campus. Showing solidarity with the farmers and calling for justice and terming the arrests of activist Nodeep Kaur and Disha Ravi as an attempt to violate the fundamental right of the students gathered outside the gurdwara on the campus.

Carrying placards reading “Political prisoners aren’t criminals”, they raised slogans and demanded the release of Disha Ravi, Nodeep Kaur and 122 farmers detained in Tihar jail. While addressing the protesters, former student of the university and Sikh Youth of Punjab president Paramjit Singh Mand said, “For the past few months, millions of peasants have been sleeping on different points of borders in Delhi in chilling cold and waging a battle against the policies that would put them in the bondage of contractors and big corporate houses. They are demanding a repeal of the agricultural laws, the scrapping of the Electricity Amendment Bill, 2020, etc. Hence, it is necessary that students should stand shoulder to shoulder with the farmers.”

Jatinder Singh, a PhD scholar of the university, who is part of the students’ protests, said, “The Central Government has an obligation to protect and uphold the protesters’ human rights, not to demonise them. It is painful that the government has arbitrarily arrested a number of protesters and activists like Nodeep Kaur and many others, which is not justified.”

Jujhar Singh of Sath, who collaborated with the Sikh Youth of Punjab, said the government should stop witch-hunting of the supporters of the farmers’ agitation, including climate activist Disha Ravi.

While commenting on the arrest of 22-year-old Ravi, Mand said under the present dispensation it seemed to be a heinous crime to post a tweet for the farmers.