The state administration’s orders regarding this year’s Saraswati Puja or Vasant Panchami celebrations, which is to be held on January 26, have caused a commotion in Bihar. Saraswati Puja has been prohibited on the Madhepura campus of BP Mandal Engineering College. This decision has infuriated the students.
The District Magistrate in Samastipur, on the other side, has threatened that an FIR would be filed against those playing DJ music during the festival.
On Friday, January 20, the students of the state government-run BP Mandal Engineering College in Madhepura, Bihar, launched a protest after the college administration imposed a ban on the celebration of Saraswati Puja on the campus.
According to media reports, the students were preparing to celebrate the upcoming festival on January 26 but the principal of the college, Arvind Kumar Amar, issued a written order to stop it immediately.
The diktat issued by the college threatened the students with legal action if the directives prohibiting the celebration of the Hindu festival were violated.
Furthermore, the students alleged that the principal and a teaching member named SD Singh locked certain students in a room and assaulted them. They were threatened with expulsion from college if they did not comply with the university’s directive.
Angered by the arbitrary decisions, students launched a protest against the college administration. On Friday, January 21, the conflict became so heated that the students held the police hostage by locking the college gates from the inside.
According to the agitated students, they requested the authorities to grant them permission to celebrate Saraswati Puja by installing an idol on campus by giving a written application to the principal Arvind Kumar Amar, but the latter refused to grant permission to instal the idol, escalating the dispute.
The principal, on the other hand, stated that students approached him to request permission to instal an idol on campus to commemorate Saraswati Puja in the university, but they were advised to celebrate the festival in all three hostels separately by placing photographs of the diety. The university administration made it clear that anyone seeking to do Saraswati Puja must do it in their own room.
The decision, according to the principal, was made to avert any communal strife at the varsity. The college principal defended his decision further by arguing that if they grant authorization to students belonging to a particular faith to celebrate their festival, people belonging to other religious communities would demand it as well.
The students, meanwhile, asserted that Saraswati Puja is an age-old tradition in which the goddess of learning is worshipped in educational institutions. It is more of a cultural event than a religious one.
FIR to be filed against those playing DJ music during Saraswati puja celebration: DM of Samastipur, Bihar issues diktat
In a separate incident reported from Bihar’s Samastipur, the DM of the district has passed a similar diktat barring the Saraswati Puja celebration in the area. As per reports, DM Yogendra Yadav and SP Vinay Kumar Tiwari have held a joint meeting with the BDOs, all the police station heads and COs ahead of the festival. The DM has stated that legal action should be taken against those who are seen playing DJ music outside puja pandals.
समस्तीपुर के DM व SP ने सरस्वती पूजा को लेकर दिए निर्देश, DJ बजाने पर FIR कर जेल भेजने का निर्देश…#Samastipur https://t.co/x6IR5r6eO4
— Samastipur Town (@SamastipurTown) January 21, 2023
Further instructions have been given to ensure that no Saraswati Puja pandals are constructed in the area without due permission from the authorities. The police have been asked to remove ‘inflammatory’ posters and banners from the puja pandals and mark all sensitive areas and idol immersion places and monitor them.
