Tension in Hyderabad varsity over ‘kiss of love’ campaign

Hyderabad, Nov 3:

Tension prevailed on the campus of Hyderabad Central University Sunday when a group of students tried to disrupt the ‘kiss of love’ campaign organised by students from Kerala.

Activists of the Bharatiya Janata Yuva Morcha (BJYM), the youth wing of the BJP, and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) tried to prevent Kerala students from organising the controversial programme.

The participants resisted the attempts, leading to the tension on the campus in the evening.

The two groups raised slogans against each other. Police intervened to bring the situation under control, and arrested scores of protesters from both sides.

The trouble began when BJYM and ABVP workers staged a sit-in against the campaign organised to protest growing moral policing.

Their leaders demanded that the university authorities stop the ‘kiss of love’ as it was against Indian culture.

The participants, including many girls, took strong exception to the moral policing by some groups and staged a counter sit-in to demand that they be allowed to conduct the programme.

They raised slogans like “police go back”, “ABVP down down” and “fight is our slogan against every repression”.

Some of them were holding placards which read “fight against moral policing”, “Even if I walk nude, I am not asking for it”.

The participants had heated arguments with police officers.

One student said it was not a kiss fest but a gathering of like-minded people, poetry reading and other academic activities.

The programme was conducted in the university as part of the campaign launched by a group of students in Kerala against moral policing.

The group called ‘Free Thinkers’ launched the campaign to protest the recent attack on a coffee shop in Kerala’s Kozhikode city by a group of people who criticised the public display of affection by some couples.

(IANS)