The Cantonment Police have registered a case against 60 people, including Students’ Federation of India (SFI) state office-bearers, over a protest organised at the University of Kerala campus in Thiruvananthapuram. The case was registered based on a complaint filed by University Registrar Resmi R.

Those booked include SFI state secretary Sanjeeve P S, state president M Sivaprasad, Palayam Nandan, Vijay Vimal, Aswin S Nair, Arya, Anand, Ashish, Vishnu and Adarsh, along with 50 identifiable others.

The protest was organised at the university headquarters demanding that alleged irregularities in the evaluation of LLB examinations be rectified. As part of the agitation, SFI activists also played cricket on the university lawn.

The SFI later organised another protest featuring a symbolic pottukuthal (applying a bindi) competition using a photograph of Vice-Chancellor Dr Mohan Kunnummal. The protest was held in response to his controversial “cockroach” remark and his statement that “those who do not know who their mother is do not sing Vande Mataram.”

According to the FIR registered by the Cantonment Police, the accused allegedly trespassed into the premises in front of the main building of the University of Kerala office at around 11 am on Wednesday. The FIR states that they allegedly formed an unlawful assembly and acted with a common intention. They allegedly obstructed the Registrar, university staff and members of the public from moving freely, shouted abusive words loudly, burst firecrackers and caused a public nuisance.

The police have booked the accused under Sections 189(2), 190, 285, 329(3), 126(2), 296(b), 270 and 287 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS). The sections relate to offences including membership of an unlawful assembly, liability for offences committed in furtherance of an assembly’s common object, obstruction or danger in a public way, house-trespass, wrongful restraint, use of obscene words in a public place, public nuisance, and negligent or rash handling of fire or combustible material.

However, the police have not detained anyone so far, and the investigation is underway.