New Delhi: A Muslim law student, a faculty member and an unidentified youth were booked in Madhya Pradesh’s Bhopal after a Bajrang Dal member complained that he was assaulted when he objected to “obscene dancing” at a garba event at SAM College on October 16 (Friday) night.The complainant went to the venue with two other Bajrang Dal office-bearers, where they found out that the college had allowed Muslims to attend the event even after the right-wing group had “sent a message,” the complaint reads.Students present at the event, however, recall a different sequence. They say Bajrang Dal members entered the campus, used the stage to ask people of a “jihadi mentality” to leave, raised “Jai Shri Ram” slogans and assaulted two Muslim students after asking their names.Police registered an FIR at Bilkhiriya police station on October 17 after the alleged incident. It invokes five sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, including obscene songs in a public place, causing hurt and criminal intimidation by threat of death.One of the students who was attacked, Sameer Alam, has also filed a complaint at the same police station, naming the Bajrang Dal member and five other men among those who beat him. Police haven’t registered it as an FIR. Meanwhile, the Bajrang Dal office-bearer’s complaint became an FIR a little over an hour after it was received.What the FIR saysThe complainant is Pushpraj Yadav, 29, of Patel Nagar Colony, Bhopal. He describes himself as the vidyarthi pramukh (student head) of the Bajrang Dal’s district unit.In his complaint, Yadav says he learnt that a garba event was being held at the college and that people were dancing “obscenely” to film songs. He went to the venue with Shivam Kushwaha and Yash Dwivedi, co-convenor of the Bajrang Dal’s district unit. At the venue, the complaint says, they found “more than two people of the Muslim community dancing obscenely to film songs.”When they asked for the “obscene songs” to be stopped, Yadav alleges, two boys assaulted and abused them and threatened to kill them. He also claims that faculty member Neeraj Gupta threatened to have them thrown out by bouncers and sided with the students. He names one boy as Sameer Alam and says he does not know the name of the other.Alam’s complaintAlam filed his own complaint online with the Bilkhiriya police station on Sunday (October 18), two days after the garba. He names six men, including the FIR’s complainant Yadav, and Dwivedi, whom Yadav’s FIR lists as one of his companions that night.Alam writes that the garba began at 6 pm, and that “some outsiders” arrived at about 8.10 pm and announced from the stage that any non-Hindu present should leave within five minutes.As he was leaving, Alam says in the complaint that somebody stopped him at the gate and asked his name. After hearing his name, a man, accompanied by others, swore at him and grabbed him by the neck. Fifteen to 20 people then beat him “brutally” as he pleaded with them, calling him “jihadi”, “katua” (a slur used to refer to Muslims) and other abuse, he alleges.Alam also alleges that Yadav told him that he would take him outside and kill him. He says Bablu Gurjar, Yash (Yashashvi) Dwivedi, Prashant Singh Patel, Harsh Lakheriya and Mohit Deshmukh punched and slapped him repeatedly. Some people from the college pulled him free, and he escaped, he writes, and he was told that the men were all from the Bajrang Dal.He says the attackers filmed the assault and circulated the video on social media, and that every one of them can be identified from it. Explaining the two-day gap, Alam writes that the death threats terrified him and that he came to the police only after his family persuaded him.The students’ accountAlam, 23, a final-year law student from Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh, told The Wire that he and Masoom Raza, a first-year B. Tech student, were beaten after they were asked their names. Entry to the garba required a Rs-200 pass. Students alleged that they received a message saying in case a student doesn’t buy a pass, the administration would impose a fine and mark them absent.Speaking to The Wire, Alam said, “I was supposed to leave for home. But missing events in the college is penalised, and I would have been fined. In the background, I come from, college fees are already enough to put a strain, and I didn’t want to pay fines, so that is why I stayed and attended the event.”“I have attended the garba event every year since I joined the university,” he added.According to Alam and the messages of students that circulated, the Bajrang Dal members entered the campus around 8 pm and went to the stage. From the stage, they asked people of “jihadi mentality” to leave within five minutes. A student message says, “Jai Shri Ram” slogans were raised.Speaking to The Wire, he said that he lost a wallet with around Rs 7,600 in cash. He added that after a faculty member intervened, the two climbed over a boundary wall and returned to their friend’s accommodation about ten kilometres away.A video showing Bajrang Dal workers slapping Alam at the venue has circulated on social media.What the police sayWhen The Wire contacted the Bilkhiriya police station by phone, they said no FIR could be registered on Alam’s complaint because he had not come to the station. Alam told this publication that the university had taken his statement and assured him that an FIR would be lodged. He said he did not know why it had not been done yet.Asked about videos circulating on social media that appear to show Bajrang Dal workers assaulting Muslim students at the venue, the officer said the police had not seen any such video and that no action had been taken. He said the police didn’t act on the FIR registered based on Yadav’s complaint either.‘Outsiders’ or enrolled students?Hindutva outfits have described the Muslim youths as outsiders. A university grade sheet seen by The Wire shows Alam is enrolled in the university. The statement of grades, issued by SAM Global University for its BA LLB (VIII semester) examination of January-June 2026, lists Sameer as a regular student who passed.Jitendra Chauhan, Madhya Bharat prant mantri (a state-level office bearer) of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), whose youth wing is the Bajrang Dal, told Navbharat Live that the college let in outsiders who were not students, and that Bajrang Dal workers went there based on information received from local students.On October 17 morning, before the FIR was registered, Haribhoomi reported that Bajrang Dal workers had caught two Muslim youths at the garba event and handed them to the police. It said the two were accused of entering the pandal wearing a tilak and were alleged to be outsiders, and not students of this college, and that Hindutva groups wanted an FIR against them and the organisers. A message seen by The Wire circulated in college groups said, “All the attendees will be welcomed with tilak on their forehead” to the event.A patternThis confrontation came in a Navratri season in which Hindutva groups have openly policed who may attend garba.In early September, the VHP announced that Muslims would be barred from garba and dandiya events across Maharashtra, and issued guidelines asking organisers to check Aadhaar cards and apply a tilak at entry. In Madhya Pradesh, Mhow BJP MLA Usha Thakur called for keeping “non-believers” out of garba pandals in Indore.In Ahmedabad last week, an announcement at a garba asked non-Hindus to leave; the VHP’s Gujarat spokesperson said Bajrang Dal volunteers routinely visit venues and ask organisers to keep non-Hindus out. In Jabalpur, the same week as the Bhopal incident, VHP and Bajrang Dal workers clashed with garba organisers, alleging objectionable songs were being played and non-Hindus had been let in.