The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) Bengaluru has said it will continue to press for the cancellation of a documentary screening on political prisoner Umar Khalid at the National Law School of India University (NLSIU), despite the university deferring the event.
NLSIU’s Law and Society Committee had scheduled a screening of filmmaker Lalit Vachani’s documentary Prisoner No. 626710 is Present on September 14. The event was planned in connection with Political Prisoners’ Day, observed on September 13, and to mark six years since Khalid’s arrest.
Sources familiar with the developments said the decision to defer the screening was not linked to ABVP’s campaign. According to the sources, the programme was postponed as September 14 coincides with Ganesh Chaturthi, and holding the event on the day could have placed additional strain on security arrangements.
ABVP Bengaluru, however, has attributed the deferral to its opposition to the programme and said it would continue seeking its cancellation.
Earlier, the student organisation issued a press release condemning what it described as a bizarre programme. It referred to Khalid’s alleged links to the 2016 Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) sloganeering controversy, his protest against the death penalty awarded to Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, and what it termed “provocative mobilization” during the protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC), as well as the 2020 Delhi riots.
ABVP said it had also emailed a complaint to the NLSIU administration seeking intervention to stop the screening, but had received no response at the time of issuing its statement.
The organisation has demanded that the university immediate cancellation of all permissions granted for the documentary screening.
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