The party alleged that police visited its office without permission later that night and subsequently detained some of the students.
In August, Gandhi wrote an open letter to Fadnavis, asking him to meet protesting Adivasi students in Pune over new government rules for Adivasi student hostels that, he said, “strip them of their dignity and shut off their path to education”. In his letter, posted on social media, Gandhi highlighted unsafe hostels in the state that “often lack food, sanitation and medical care”. He said students had suffered injuries and deaths, including from snake bites, and that facilities for women were worse.
MUMBAI: A group of Adivasi students was allegedly threatened and detained by police at the Maharashtra Congress headquarters in Dadar in the early hours of Monday to prevent them from staging a protest at Azad Maidan. The party alleged that police visited its office without permission later that night and subsequently detained some of the students. Maharashtra Congress president Harshvardhan Sapkal demanded the immediate release of the detained tribal students and warned that if they were not freed, Congress leaders would come to Mumbai and lay siege to Varsha bungalow, the official residence of chief minister Devendra Fadnavis. The government had accepted most of the students’ demands but failed to convince the agitating students to withdraw their protest.
Earlier, Congress MP Rahul Gandhi met the group during his visit to Pune and urged the government to resolve their grievances while expressing support for their cause. The Congress said the students had no place to stay in Mumbai, so the party allowed them to stay at its office in Dadar on Sunday night.