JUSTICE FOR SOORAJ

Complaint given to the IIT Madras administration
JUSTICE FOR SOORAJ·WEDNESDAY, 31 MAY 201

Respected Sir,

R. Sooraj, a research scholar from the Department of Aerospace Engineering, was violently beaten up by a group of eight students. These students rounded up Sooraj and a research colleague of his, Anoop, in Himalaya mess during lunch hours on 30th May, 2017. One of the students, identified as Manish Kumar Singh, came and sat next to Sooraj and started asking him his name and personal details. When Sooraj asked him why he was asking for the same, he replied that it was for no particular reason. Following this, Manish began questioning Sooraj as to whether he had eaten beef the day before. When he got a reply in the affirmative, he got very agitated and angrily asked Sooraj whether he would eat beef and come to Jain Mess (where Sooraj was dining). Immediately afterwards, before Sooraj had a chance to respond, Manish brutally attacked Sooraj with a blow to the back of his head. As soon as the attack began, the group of students who had accompanied Manish rushed and surrounded Sooraj and held him back, and also restrained and pushed Anoop away to make sure he couldn’t intervene. Manish pulled Sooraj’s hair and held his head down and continued to punch his face repeatedly. All the while, Manish was yelling expletives and that he would kill anyone who ate beef.
When finally Anoop and some bystander managed to intervene, the attackers quickly left the scene, along with Manish.

Sooraj was immediately taken to the institute hospital. Manish appeared at the hospital soon after along with his friends. Here, he boasted of having beaten up Sooraj and made death threats to Azhar, one of the students who had come to check up on him. He also named Justin Joseph as another one whom he would kill. This incident should be clearly visible in the CCTV footage of the hospital. Sooraj was later referred to Sankara Nethralaya as the institute doctors were not able to asses the condition of his eye due to excessive swelling. He is now admitted to Apollo Vanagaram, after scans revealed that the injuries suffered to his right eye and face during the attack were severe and he requires surgery to recover.


This shocking incident has happened after some of the perpetrators made open threats through social media platforms like Facebook against the students who participated in the discussion about the implications of the recent Central government rule on prevention of trade of cattle for slaughter. The student who assaulted Sooraj, Manish, had called up some participants of the same gathering to get the names of those who organised the event. He had threatened the same people (and a complaint had already been filed regarding the same with you). Manish had warned the participant students of dire consequences.


The group of students who attacked Sooraj entered the Himalaya mess when there were very few students eating in the mess. Manish had already finished eating and was earlier seen waiting on the ground floor of Himalaya mess along with a few others. They saw Sooraj and Anoop enter the mess and followed them to indulge in the extremely condemnable form of violence. The nature of the attack suggests that it is clearly pre-planned, well thought out and executed.

Sooraj is a senior research scholar who has been helpful to his fellow students and research scholars. His friendly nature and kind gestures had earned him respect among the research scholars in the campus. He was not an organiser of the event that happened on Sunday and took part in the event in solidarity with the nation-wide agitation against the new Central government’s rule. The fact that this has happened to a research scholar like Sooraj points towards the magnitude of perversion entrenched in the students who attacked him.


The perpetrators of the attack are out in open and their presence can cause more harm to the students. These students who attacked Sooraj, including Manish, have been identified to be engaging in similar violent attacks in the past. Institutions like IIT Madras are places for debates and discussion. Horrifying attacks like these will hamper the culture of harmony in these institutions. We demand that all the students who attacked Sooraj be expelled from the institute and disallowed entry into the campus with immediate effect, with Sooraj being given an assurance regarding the same. The institute should take full responsibility for Sooraj’s medical expenses till he fully recovers. All the actions taken on the students involved should be communicated to the general student body. We hope the IIT Madras administration will fulfill our demands and uphold our right to life, right to dissent and right to organize peaceful gatherings, as guaranteed by the Constitution of India.


SOURCE: https://www.facebook.com/notes/justice-for-sooraj/complaint-given-to-the-iit-madras-administration/472873809716963/

A reason for the existence of that page may be found here: Why we exist? #justiceforsooraj.


As of the present time, none of the perpetrators of the assault have been arrested or expelled.


Please note that it is still legal to enjoy your delicious Kerala Beef Fry in Madras, but doing so might cost you your life in Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh, where Bakht goondas not only hold office, but have lynched people suspected of even considering ever eating a fine beefsteak.

The prime minister of India is Narendra D. Modi, whose reputation is not entirely clean; his administration while in charge of Gujarat is considered complicit in the 2002 riots, and his ideological kin led efforts to destroy the Babri Mosque as well as persecute (murder) Muslims, Christians, Parsees, Sikhs, and atheists, in various parts of India. Most notably in Gujarat, Rajastan, Maharashtra, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh.

This is the muscular Hindu Nationalism beloved by certain circles in the United States, who would see allies in foreign gangsters.


Narendra Modi, by the way, has a fine relationship with our own leader, who puts ketchup on his steaks. Which is an abomination.



PS.: Still researching recipes for Kerala Beef Fry. I have mostly avoided beef since 2004, when our own beef industry was caught lying through their teeth about certain practices that contribute to the spread of BSE (Bovine Spongiform Encephalitis) among other things, but we appear to be clean now, and I will probably soon start experimenting with beef and coconut chunks rubbed with masala and dry-fried on low heat for several hours.
Descriptions of Kerala Beef Fry make it sound wonderful.
It's a pity that you cannot find it here.
For risk of offending.




==========================================================================
NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
==========================================================================