SFI resorts to smear campaign against victims after moral policing in campus

In a desperate bid to save its face after coming under severe criticism for attacking a young man and two girls for sitting together in University College in Thiruvananthapuram on Thursday, SFI leaders and pro-CPM cyber groups resorted to character assassination of the victims. But the concerted efforts to paint the students in bad light served only to dent the leftist students' federation's progressive credentials.  

To counter the allegations of moral policing and attacking two girl students of the college and their friend inside the campus, SFI campus leadership filed a counter case with the police alleging that the male friend of the girls showered abuses on other girls of the campus for questioning their 'illicit relationship.' The complaint suggested that the two girls were found in a compromising situation inside a class room. SFI state leadership also repeated these claims and a smear campaign is on across social media platforms. 
 

Also read: Moral policing by SFI in Kerala campus: youth, girls roughed up, abused
 

The victims said that they were watching a play in the campus when a few SFI workers attacked and showered abuses on them for sitting together. But the SFI leadership continues to argue that the classroom episode was the reason for the attack.

These claims, however, did not help the SFI as the social media questioned the student organisation's authority to intervene in the relationships of others. There were few takers for the SFI's explanation of the events, and it was also widely criticised for not taking action against the perpetrators even after the police registered case against a dozen SFI workers in connection with the moral policing incident. 

Filmmaker Ashiq Abu, a vocal supporter of the CPM, denounced the attack and demanded the SFI leadership to take exemplary action against the miscreants. "That was a Sanghi-model attack," he wrote on his Facebook wall.  

SFI state secretary M Vijin said his organisation had always welcomed healthy male-female relationships. Wherever there were infringement and repression of human rights, the SFI was there to raise voice against it, he said. "We won't allow the attempts to paint the SFI as a gang of moral goons. If any SFI worker were found to have involved in this incident, we would take action against them after looking into the matter.  We do not protect the guilty, we do not crucify the innocent as well," the SFI leader clarified. 

• SFI
• moral policing in campus
• University College
• Moral policing