The Bengaluru Police on Monday arrested 9 folks, together with seven college students, and the principal of Jain College‘s Centre for Administration Research (CMS), for allegedly making derogatory statements towards Dr B R Ambedkar and the Dalit neighborhood, throughout a skit carried out on the school occasion final week.
P Krishnakant, deputy commissioner of police (DCP), Bengaluru South, stated seven college students, the principal and the programme organiser have been arrested by the Siddapura police on Monday.
The accused have been recognized as Sujal, Naima Nagriya, Gaurav Pawar, Pranav Palliyal, Rishab Jain, Smruthi RB, Ashish Agarwal and Principal Dinesh Nilkant.
“The accused have been booked below numerous sections of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and 153A, 149, 295A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC),” Krishnakant stated.
Final Saturday, a video of six college students from the college performing a skit that allegedly confirmed Dalits and Ambedkar in a derogatory method went viral and brought on outrage on social media.
Siddapura police in Jayanagar additionally registered a primary data report (FIR) below the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989, towards the principal and senior officers of the college on Saturday.
The skit, staged throughout the college’s ‘Youth Fest’ by The Delroys Boys, a theatre group from CMS, allegedly mocked folks belonging to the Scheduled Castes, and referred to as Dr BR Ambedkar ‘Beer Ambedkar’.
“BR Ambedkar? Hey no no, it’s Beer Ambedkar.”
One other dialogue was, “Why to be a Dalit once you might be the lit? On a date, there additionally she didn’t let him eat from the identical plate,” the characters stated within the play.
“Girlfriend requested him how he arrived right here so quick. He says, Hey child, it’s as a result of I’m from the Schedule Caste,” is one other dialogue making enjoyable of the SC neighborhood within the play.
“You hey, Dalit, don’t contact that water, you don’t get a drop, neglect about making 1 / 4.”
Some school college students who watched the skit whereas it was carried out on February 4 began a web-based petition on Jhatkaa.org, calling it an “extremely casteist and insensitive” skit.
“It’s unacceptable that the script for the efficiency went by a number of rounds of approval earlier than being enacted on stage. The identical insensitive script was enacted on February 5 by the identical contingent at one other school fest, sponsored by Under25 in Bengaluru,” learn the petition.
“We demand that they publicly apologise for his or her actions and take concrete steps to teach themselves and others on the significance of inclusivity and sensitivity in direction of marginalised communities. The promotion of dangerous and offensive content material has no place in any academic or public platform, and goes towards the beliefs that Ambedkar and others have fought so laborious to uphold,” it stated.
Dalit organisations and leaders slammed the video.
“Casteist slurs aren’t satire!College students at Jain College, Bengaluru, insulted Babasaheb and made casteist humour towards the SC neighborhood. Such casteist & insensible skits are an try and mock the Depressed Courses,” Suraj Kumar Bauddh, an anti-caste activist, stated.
Nationwide College students’ Union of India (NSUI), the scholar wing of the Congress occasion, staged a protest on the school premises and defaced its identify boards on Sunday.
In the meantime, increased schooling minister Dr C N Ashwath Narayan has requested the division’s principal secretary to conduct an in depth probe into the alleged incident and submit a report.
“The incident which has been stated to have occurred was very unlucky. Babasaheb Ambedkar is the architect of the nation’s structure. He’s revered by the entire world. It’s unacceptable if he’s disrespected,” Narayan stated on Monday.