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When cries of 'azaadi' in the familiar rhythm rent the air in south Kolkata on Monday, no one could have expected to see what the marchers were carrying: saffron flags. But it was in fact the (rather aged) members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad who were chanting the familiar lines.

While the original call for freedom on campuses was from capitalism, castesim, brahminism, patriarchy, poverty and hunger, here the war-cry was against communism, leftists, Mao, Naxalism, and JNU.

The rally, which ran from Golpark to Jadavpur University, ran into police barricades which the marchers tried in vain to breach.

The video above was shot by filmmaker Debalina Mow, who, along with her companion Jhelum Roy, were constantly heckled and mocked by the protesters. A Facebook post accompanying the video put up by Jhelum Roy describes the shooting experience.

 Throughout the route as we continued with our shoot, we were constantly interrogated and teased for being JU students or perhaps to be more specific ‘Jadavpurer meye’ who were polluting the area by having opinions, exercising our agencies and leading lives that perhaps did not conform with their Hindutva morality (one of the men pointed his finger at Debalina and informed another ‘oke ami chhotobela theke dekhchi jadavpurer mod gnaja kheye thake’ [I have seen her from childhood, she is from Jadavpur, I have often seen her drunk and smoked up)

The post further states how the crowd erupted in cheers when their leader said Jadavpur University women have no right to complain about being molested since they have no dignity.

All throughout the crowd shouted ‘Bharat mata ki jai’, ‘azaadi’ and broke in celebration as one of their leaders stated that JU women did not have any dignity or respect and therefore did not have any right to complain if they were molested (‘Jadavpurer meyeder samman ache naki je tader abar molestation’), one of them even asked the complainants to see themselves on the mirror as their comrades would only be attracted to beautiful ‘sanskari’ women to ‘molest’ them.