Though leftist activists and groups have been maintaining that the protests organised to show solidarity to JNU students are against the violence at campus and students’ rights, secessionist posters keep making an appearance, forcing everyone to ask what is the real intention behind these agitations.
On January 6, secessionist posters asking for “Free Kashmir” were seen in Mumbai’s Gateway of India where many social media and Bollywood activists had gathered to show solidarity with the JNU students after Sunday’s violence in the campus.
Now, as per reports, similar posters are seen at Delhi’s St Stephen’s college. As shared by BJP spokesperson Suresh Nakhua, a poster supporting ‘Aazad Kashmir’ was seen at the protest there over JNU violence.
https://twitter.com/SureshNakhua/status/1214882429305065474?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Social media users have shared images of other similar posters seen at St Stephen’s too.
https://twitter.com/maverickmarmot/status/1214806149746192384?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
It is notable here that after the “Free Kashmir” poster fiasco at the Gateway protest, there has been a desperate attempt by the ruling Shiv Sena, which has become freshly ‘secular’ and newly ‘liberal’ after forming an alliance government with Congress, to claim that the poster was not secessionist.
A video has emerged where DU students can be seen raising slogans of “Kashmir Maange Azaadi”.
https://twitter.com/iMac_too/status/1214895806186172416?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
Read: Sanjay Raut defends ‘free Kashmir’ posters in Mumbai protests, says they did not mean that
Sena prince Aaditya Thackeray and Sena leader Sanjay Raut had tried to defend the poster. Raut has even claimed that the poster was not about demanding secession from India but about asking for internet access. A similar claim was also repeated by the woman Mehek Mirza Prabhu, the woman who had held that poster.