Madhya Pradesh college teacher roughed up by students dies

Bhopal: A Madhya Pradesh college professor, who was roughed up by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarti Parishad (ABVP) activists earlier this week, has died of heart attack, police said Saturday.

Professor S.S. Thakur, who was allegedly roughed up by ABVP activists March 9 in the office of the dean of Bhagwant Rao Agriculture College in Khandwa, some 200 km from here, died of a heart attack late Friday night.

The incident comes about five years after another state professor H.S. Sabharwal of Ujjain died following an assault by ABVP activists.

After the incident in the Khandwa college, Thakur had gone on leave to his ancestral house in Damoh where he died, police said.

On March 9, ABVP activists entered Dean P.P. Shastri's office and blackened the face of Assistant Professor Ashok Choudhary, facing students' allegations of misbehaving with girls in college hostel.

Thakur, present in the dean's office at that time of the assault on Choudhary, tried to intervene but was roughed up by the ABVP activists.

"He has nothing to do with the incident... he happened to be present on the occasion. He had gone to his home on vacation and died of cardiac arrest. The matter should not be linked with the issue (incident in dean's office) but people are doing it," Additional Superintendent of Police Shiv Hare told IANS.

Family members and colleagues of Thakur claimed he was assaulted during the ABVP protest. Humiliated and hurt over the incident, he had gone on leave to his ancestral house in Damoh where he died.

The ABVP's rival National Students' Union of India demonstrated in three cities - Indore, Gwalior and Jabalpur - blaming the former for Thakur's death.

The incident comes about five years after professor H.S. Sabharwal of Ujjain died following an assault by ABVP activists. The victim tried to stop irregularities during union polls at Ujjain's Madhav College.

The case sparked a national outrage. Several ABVP leaders were arrested but acquitted because of lack of evidence.

In a similar incident, a government teacher in Tikamgarh was thrashed by suspected ABVP activists in front of his three daughters in 2007, a year after Sabharwal's death

The culprits were not caught. Instead, the teacher was transferred out of the district by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in the state.

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