Activists of one of Pakistan’s largest student body, Islami Jamiat Tulba (IJT), on Monday attacked a gathering of Hindu university students celebrating Holi on the campus of Punjab University, Lahore.

At least 15 Hindu students were injured during the attack by the armed Islamists, which took place despite students having the administration’s permission to celebrate their festival. Later, when Hindu and other Sindhi students tried to protest with the university administration, they were assaulted by guards.

A number of viral videos showed the Hindu students being thrashed for celebrating Holi:

University of Punjab baton charge upon students, their biggest sin is that they belong to Sindh province as well as many of them are Hindus students those who celebrating their Holi festival shame on Punjab university adminstration also upon Punjab govt #Racism#educationcrisis pic.twitter.com/qLDJJYBAsy

— Siraj Arsul korai (@Sirajkorae) March 6, 2023

Videos of protesting Hindu and Sindhi students later being beaten with baton-wielding guards, causing them to flee were also seen. An application had been filed with the police for registration of a case, but no action seems to have been taken thus far.

Sindh Council general secretary Kashif Brohi told Dawn that the members of the Hindu community and the council had organised a Holi celebration after getting permission from the university administration. He said the IJT activists started hurling threats after students had posted Holi celebration invitations on their Facebook page.

He said on Monday morning the members of the Sindh Council and Hindu community gathered outside PU law College to celebrate the Holi when the IJT activists carrying guns and batons attacked them. Mr Brohi said 15 students from Hindu community and Sindh Council suffered injuries during clashes and moved away without celebrating the event.

He said the students later gathered to protest outside the vice chancellor office when the security guards came there holding batons and started beating them. He said the security guards also bundled four to five students into their vans and did not allow them to record their peaceful protest.

He said an application was submitted to the administration and police for registration of case against the IJT activists and security guards for torturing them.

IJT denied it was their members who attacked the Holi celebration, and claimed ‘IJT would ensure equality to minority community members to hold their religious events’. IJT (the T is spelled variously as Tulba/Talaba/Taleba) is the militant student wing of the radical Jamaat-e-Islami (JeI), an organization founded in 1941 by Maulana Syed Abul Ala Maududi, an influential Indian Islamist ideologue who was born in 1903 in Aurangabad, in the then Nizam-ruled princely state of Hyderabad.

After partition, JeI split into different organizations in India (Jamaat-e-Islami Hind i.e. JIH), Pakistan and later Bangladesh. But the underlying ideology of all these different outfits remains the same and they all revere Maududi. JIH has often come out in support of Islamic terrorists in India.

A Punjab University spokesman told Dawn that ‘action would be taken’ against those involved in attacking the Hindu students. But he indirectly blamed the victims by claiming they only had permission to celebrate Holi in a hall, but were conducting it in the open.

The spokesman also appeared to downplay the violence by stating the the students suffered only ‘minor injuries’. He also claimed the security staff did not attack the students but were only trying to ‘stop the youngsters’ from approaching the VC office. The video evidence clearly shows otherwise.

Hindu students in Karachi University (KU), Sindh (considered a more ‘progressive’ province compared to Punjab) also claimed that they were not allowed to celebrate Holi on campus. In a video, a female student claimed that IJT activists stopped them from playing Holi and even physically assaulted them.

KU authorities denied these reports of violence, as per another Dawn report. Their ‘reasoning’ – no permission was sought for celebrating Holi, so there is no way any Holi event could have been attacked. They also claimed that no such incident was reported to the security office or to the hospital, to deny the Hindu students’ claims.

After initially denying the reports of violence, a Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) later told Dawn that KU administration admitted that two events were taking place simultaneously – one pertaining to the life of Islam’s prophet while a few students had arranged a programme to celebrate Holi. The SSP said that as per the KU administration, an ‘exchange of hot words’ had taken place but ‘no violence’ occurred. The administration claimed it intervened and ‘resolved’ the issue.