BJP defends ABVP on Geelani episode

NEW DELHI: A day after ABVP activists protested against S A R Geelani at a seminar and one of them spat on him, the BJP has called it an expression of "surcharged emotions" by "patriotic" students.

"The surcharged emotions of patriotic students can't be simply ignored," party spokesperson Rajiv Pratap Rudy told reporters here on Friday reacting to the incident.

A group of ABVP activists had gone on a rampage at Delhi University on Thursday, vandalising the venue of a seminar in protest against the presence of S A R Geelani, who was acquitted in the Parliament attack case, and spat on him.

Around 50 youths damaged property and hurled abuses at Geelani at the seminar on 'Communalism, Fascism and Democracy, Rhetoric and Reality', disrupting the programme briefly.

"His (S A R Geelani) association with militants can't be denied and one can simply say that he was just saved by the skin and the shroud of mistrust still prevails about him," Rudy added.

He claimed that the coming together of pseudo-secular sympathisers and certain radical groups had emerged in the university community meeting.

The party, however, said that the protest by the student body could have been "more hygienic." "The Bharitiya Janata Party has taken note of the protest by ABVP activists at a Delhi University seminar and we certainly feel that the nature of protest should be more hygienic," Rudy said.