Pune clash: Youth Congress workers booked ahead of Rahul Gandhi event

Pune Police have registered a case against 50 to 60 Youth Congress workers following a violent clash between student groups at the College of Engineering, Pune (COEP) hostel campus on Friday night, ahead of Congress leader Rahul Gandhi's scheduled student interaction event. The incident has heightened political tensions in the city as Gandhi's "Chhatron Ki Goonj" program is set to take place on Saturday evening.

The confrontation occurred between members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) and the National Students Union of India (NSUI), the student wing of the Congress party. Police were deployed in large numbers at the campus to control the situation. Based on a complaint filed by an ABVP member, authorities registered a first information report (FIR) on Saturday morning against 50 to 60 Youth Congress workers, naming six activists. The FIR includes charges under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and the Maharashtra Police Act for voluntarily causing simple physical hurt, unlawful assembly, and criminal intimidation.

The two sides have presented conflicting accounts of the clash. ABVP State Secretary Atharva Kulkarni alleged that NSUI workers entered the...