Indian police detain students for screening BBC Modi documentary

• Delhi University students had joined students.
• Student groups loyal to Modi’s ruling party objected to the screening.
• 24 students had been detained.

NEW DELHI: Indian police detained students in New Delhi on Friday after a BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s role in 2002 sectarian riots was halted.

Delhi University students had joined students from other campuses across the country in staging a broadcast, defying government efforts to halt its spread by blocking its publication on social media.

Police swarmed the university after student groups loyal to Modi‘s ruling party objected to the screening, seizing laptops and prohibiting assemblies of more than four people.

Police officer Sagar Singh Kalsi told the Indian news channel that 24 students had been detained.

According to the two-part BBC documentary, Modi ordered police to turn a blind eye to deadly riots while he was chief minister of Gujarat state.

The unrest began after 59 Hindu pilgrims were killed in a train fire. Thirty-one Muslims were found guilty of criminal conspiracy and murder in connection with that incident.

In the ensuing unrest, at least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed.

Politically motivated

The documentary quoted a previously classified British foreign ministry report which said the violence was “politically motivated” and the aim “was to purge Muslims from Hindu areas”.

According to the report, the riots would not have been possible “without the climate of impunity” created by Modi’s administration.

Under controversial information technology laws, India has dismissed the series as “hostile” propaganda and ordered major social media platforms such as Twitter and YouTube to prohibit sharing or streaming it.

Authorities at New Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University also banned an attempted screening earlier this week, threatening “strict disciplinary action” if the edict was disobeyed.

Defiant groups of students have gathered on college campuses across India to watch the documentary on laptop and phone screens.

Modi ruled Gujarat from 2001 until his election as Prime Minister in 2014, and he was briefly barred from entering the country due to the violence.

An investigation team appointed by the Indian Supreme Court to look into Modi’s and others’ roles in the violence concluded in 2012 that there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

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