Police in Blue Riot gear, Delhi's Jamia Millia Students detained after controversial BBC film screening

Digital Desk: The famous Jamia Millia Islamia university in Delhi cancelled classes on Wednesday and confined more than a dozen students, including members of a left-wing group, over plans to show the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi this evening. Students who were protesting the operation with banners and chants were seen being detained by police.

Southeast Delhi's college was approached by police in blue riot gear and trucks armed with tear gas cannons. Only exam-taking pupils were admitted, while everyone else was turned away. 

After the Students Federation of India (SFI), the student branch of the Communist Party of India (Marxist), announced the screening on Facebook on Tuesday, officials at Jamia warned in a statement that they will not permit any unapproved meetings on campus. 

The government has cracked down on the film and asked social media companies to remove connections to it since it is based on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's time as Gujarat's Chief Minister during the 2002 riots. The move has been criticised by the opposition as obvious censorship.

Last evening, a same show organised by some students at Jawaharlal Nehru University encountered technical difficulties, with both the internet and electricity turned off in the students' union office. Instead, hundreds of people gathered outdoors in the dark to watch the documentary on phone screens or laptop screens, and the evening concluded with a protest march. The JNU administration had threatened disciplinary action if the documentary was shown, claiming that it would disrupt campus peace and unity.

The Jamia Millia Islamia stated in a statement, "Without the consent of the responsible party, no student gathering, meeting, or film screening is permitted on campus. If this rule is broken, the event's organisers will face severe disciplinary punishment. The institution is doing everything it can to stop individuals or groups with a stake in destroying the tranquil academic environment of the university." 

The two-part documentary series "India: The Modi Question" has been dubbed a "propaganda work" by PM Modi's administration. The riots in Gujarat were investigated, and he was found to be innocent of all charges. An appeal against his exoneration in one of the cases connected to the killings was denied by the Supreme Court last year.

"Nothing illegal was being done by the students. The film has not been technically banned. The constitution protects the right to disagree with the government. In what is supposed to be the largest democracy in the world, if these fundamental characteristics of a democracy are being denied in institutions of higher learning where we are supposed to teach students to question, be critical, and to dissent, then it shows a very dangerous trend "Founder of the SFI and leader Varkey Parakkal stated.

In the three-day rioting in Gujarat in 2002, more than 1,000 people died, and the state police came under heavy criticism for failing to do enough to quell the unrest that broke out when a train carrying pilgrims was burned in Godhra, killing 59 people.