Dear Friends,
This is a personal note form my side.
What happened yesterday was really unfortunate. It was primarily a mistake committed by group of volunteers who had no clue of free software (they admitted that) or what is the issue being raised by Anivar and others.
Aroun 12 pm (dont remember exactly) we got call from anivar saying that he was thrown out of exhibition and few other students managing stalls were treated badly.
Amarnath Raja (IEEE Chair, Kerala), myself and Vimal tried to mediate with organisers of the exhibition, we requested them to allow protesters to put posters in two stalls which are managed by them. Our request was rejected and we were also treated badly. This forced us all to participate in a very peaceful protest near the venue. We sat down peacefully and then(may be after 1 hr) two organisers came and said they want to discuss and resolve. They said we can not sit there, we agreed.They also said they will enquire into what happened. Everything ended there.
Dont make more stories around this. Students who were manhandled and threatened are going to give complaints. I hope organisers will take action to ensure that this is not repeated. It is a lesson for organisers of other similar events also.
Had the organisers (of exhibition,) allowed putting up some small posters, none of this issue would have happened. (Exhibition seems to be done separately from main event. That is what i was told.)
regards, arun.