Lucknow University has barred six students from entering the campus and issued show-cause notices to seven others following days of protests over the fencing of the Lal Baradari monument, media reports said.
The action comes after clashes between two student groups over allegations that prayers were being offered near the monument and objections to the university’s decision to fence the structure.
Aryan Mishra, vice president of the Uttar Pradesh unit of the National Students’ Union of India (NSUI), said the fencing was put up on Saturday. NSUI is the student wing of India’s opposition Congress party.
Some students told The Indian Express that a hall inside the Lal Baradari structure had been used as a mosque. They alleged the fencing was intended to prevent students and local residents from offering namaz during the Islamic holy month of Ramzan, which began on Feb. 18.
On Sunday, a group of Muslim students offered namaz near the structure, with NSUI members present, Mishra said.
University authorities said on Monday that the fencing was erected as a safety measure because the monument is in a dilapidated condition, The Indian Express reported. They denied claims that any hall inside Lal Baradari had functioned as a mosque.
Tensions escalated on Tuesday when members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) gathered outside the structure, raised religious slogans, staged a sit-in and recited the Hanuman Chalisa, a Hindu devotional hymn. The ABVP is the student wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
ABVP members also demanded that the spot where namaz had been offered be “purified”, The Telegraph reported. Some ABVP members were later detained by police, according to the Hindustan Times.
Chitvan Kumar, station house officer of Hasanganj police station, told The Indian Express that 13 students had been asked to furnish a personal bond of 50,000 rupees ($600) each along with two sureties of the same amount.
A notice issued to the students alleged they had “made deliberate attempts to obstruct construction work” at Lal Baradari within the university premises, the newspaper reported.
The notice further alleged that the students staged a road protest inside the campus, raised slogans and attempted to offer namaz at a public place, “thereby creating a situation with the potential to disturb public order and disrupt communal harmony”.
It added that there was a “strong likelihood” the students could in future engage in acts leading to a breach of peace, and said authorities had sought to bind them down with substantial sureties, according to The Indian Express.