Punjab’s former chief minister Charanjit Singh Channi alleged that the violence that broke out at the Lovely Professional University’s Phagwara campus was a result of political targeting of its owner Ashok Mittal. He accused Aam Aadmi Party of plotting to destroy the university after Mittal joined BJP. Channi also raised questions over the police response and the treatment of students during the protests.
The state government meanwhile announced the formation of a special investigation team (SIT) to probe the LPU incident while defending the state police. Investigations into the separate incidents at LPU in Phagwara and Chitkara University in Rajpura revealed that fake accounts of sexual assault, student suicides, and mysterious disappearances were deliberately seeded into open discussion threads, leading to campus-wide protests. “Outsiders went there and engaged in hooliganism. This hooliganism was sponsored by the police themselves. LPU Founder Ashok Mittal has joined the BJP, and after that, the Aam Aadmi Party government has tried to destroy this University,” news agency ANI quoted Channi as saying. Lovely Professional University in Phagwara saw massive protests over the weekend following unverified reports that an outsider had raped a student.
Demonstrators also blocked the Amritsar-Delhi National Highway-44 for nearly 12 hours. Following the violence, a large number of police personnel, supervised by senior superintendents of police (SSPs) from 10 districts, were stationed on the campus. Internet services within a 3-km radius of the campus were suspended to prevent the spread of rumours.
AAP Punjab media in-charge Baltej Singh Pannu said the situation at LPU was “highly sensitive”, and the police handled it with restraint and professionalism. No factual basis could be established for any of the viral allegations, police said. The protests turned violent on Sunday, when a masked mob vandalised university property, torched police vehicles, and set parts of campus buildings on fire.
