A group of academics and concerned citizens have condemned the FIR filed by Azim Premji University (APU) against its own students after ABVP members vandalised the university and assaulted a student, saying it “introduces the threat of state coercion into the heart of academic life”.
Over 400 people, including academics, students, research scholars, advocates, writers and journalists have written an open letter to APU, asking the university to ensure that the FIR did not adversely affect the students.
Stating that the “immediate and serious wrongdoing” in this episode was the vandalism and assault carried out by “members of an external political organisation ABVP”, the open letter said that the violence “constituted a direct attack on the autonomy and safety of the university community”.
ABVP members forcibly entered the APU campus in Sarjapura, Bengaluru South district, on February 24. They vandalised the university and assaulted a student before being removed by the police. The university has filed a complaint against ABVP as well as its own students.
The statement said that universities address questions of procedure, event approvals, and internal disagreements through established disciplinary and governance mechanisms.
“Converting such matters into criminal allegations risks conflating debate or administrative lapse with illegality and introduces the threat of state coercion into the heart of academic life,” the statement added.
The letter also said that criminal law was an instrument of last resort. “It must not be used to regulate student expression, to manage reputational anxiety, or to appease violent disruption by external political actors. Escalating a matter of campus governance into an FIR exposes students to the coercive machinery of the carceral state and risks permanently damaging the culture of trust and intellectual freedom essential to academic life.”
The signatories called on the university to take immediate and transparent steps to ensure that no student faces criminal consequences for academic discussion or debate on any subject.
They urged the university to publicly affirm that student expression within constitutional bounds would not be subject to criminalisation. They also demanded assurance that legal and institutional avenues would be pursued to close the FIR. Further, the signatories called for a recommitment to internal and non-carceral mechanisms for addressing procedural or administrative concerns on campus.
