Not the 3rd Reich but guerilla-style attacks launched on students

They don't have to wear a band on their hands to identify themselves as 'Jews', living under the totalitarian Third Reich. After all this is not the 1930s anymore. These days in Delhi University, wearing a kurta with shoulder length hair and female students with a bob cut find bricks, hockey sticks and rape threats coming their way.

In the aftermath of the Ramjas College violence which spilled onto Maurice Nagar police station, college students from across the city recount their horror as they were subjected to a guerilla-style attack involving beatings with hockey sticks, glass shards, tube lights, bricks and for good measure- eggs wrapped in plastics.

After the attack, students now claim that they had been stalked to their hostels, slapped by unknown men on bikes and threatened with rape for wearing kurtas and looking like JNU students.

"They beat us with bricks the size of my fist. We tried to shield ourselves with our bags and tried to make sure that we shield our heads. But then they aimed at our stomachs and hands. It was a rain of bricks, and we somehow managed to escape," said Kuldeep, a DU student.

Tapasya, a Masters student from Ramjas, was singing protest songs when the ABVP cadre barged through the police barricades and went on a Viking berserk attack. "They just infiltrated our group and started to thrash all the students. We all tried to run and the police merely brushed aside the ABVP members and beat up the protestors viciously," she said.

Tapasya and the other protesters ran for refuge and knew that the back gate of the college would remain open and they could escape from the attack. However, to their utter dismay, they found that the gate had been locked and they were faced by a marauding army of ABVP cadres who went on to assault the students. The students were locked in from all sides as the attackers managed to brutalise them. Several professors were beaten up their kurtas were torn. Saikat Ghosh, a faculty member and Prashant Chakravarty from Department of English were almost strangulated to death by an attacker.

"One of my students had received a cut on his head when he tried to save one of his teachers. He is currently in the hospital right now. This is just beyond shocking. This was supposed to be a normal academic seminar," said Nandini Sundar, the DU professor who herself faced the ire of the state when she was booked for the murder of a tribal in Bastar.

Prashant from SFI had tried to shield a scribe when he was assaulted and received a hairline fracture in his arm. Other students like Tanmay from Ramjas were also injured and later in a grotesque display of violence, Akshay Raghupati from Delhi School of Economics was beaten up by a group of ABVP cadres and while he was lying down, one of the attackers tried to attack him by dropping a parked bike onto his body.

After this, several of them were taken to the hospital and many more were driven around for hours in the police bus and dropped at Hauz Khas police station. But the evening provided no refuge. "They beat innocent bystanders and many of my female friends have been receiving rape threats. Now, if you look a certain type, that gives them license to kill. Who will look after our safety after all of this is over," said Anusha, a DU student.