Deepika Padukone looks on as she attends the trailer launch of her upcoming Hindi film Chhapaak in Mumbai [File: Sujit Jaiswal/AFP]
A top Bollywood actress is being praised for visiting an elite Indian university where students were protesting against an attack on them.
The attack was by masked suspects with alleged links to a student group backed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Deepika Padukone, 34, on Tuesday visited New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), where alleged members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) brutally assaulted dozens of students and teachers with sticks, sledgehammers and rocks on Sunday.
The violence in JNU followed a public meeting organised by the university’s teachers association in connection with a rise in hostel charges for students announced weeks ago.
Aishe Ghosh, president of the JNU students’ union who was seriously wounded in the attack, was present among the students when Padukone joined their protest.
Indian media reports said Padukone hugged Ghosh and stayed with the JNU students for about 15 minutes, but only had a brief chat with the student leader and did not address the crowd.
Ghosh, who was attacked by masked assailants on Sunday night, is among 20 students named in the first information report (FIR or police complaint) of the Delhi police on Tuesday.
