The first episode of the controversial BBC documentary on Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Gujarat riots in 2002 was screened at the campus of Hyderabad Central University yesterday in a special screening held by a students’ body.

The Central government and the BJP have dismissed the documentary as “propaganda”.

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The Centre has not only removed the documentary from YouTube but also got the links to the documentary removed by YouTube and Twitter through the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.

However, the Hyderabad Central University (HCU) unit of the Fraternity Movement, a student body, organised the special screening of the first episode of the documentary on the response of the state government headed by the then chief minister Narendra Modi to the riots in Gujarat in 2002.

The Fraternity Movement’s Twitter handle announced that the screening took place on the campus along with photographs of the event. Around 200 students are said to have watched the first episode of the documentary. The second episode will be aired on 24 January.

“BBC Documentary ‘India: The Modi Question’ which was removed from YouTube screened at HCU by Fraternity Movement -HCU Unit,” read the tweet from the students’ body.

The screening took place at around 7 pm at Velivada. The Velivada (Dalit Ghetto) was a temporary structure on the campus erected after Rohit Vemula, a research scholar, was suspended along with four of his friends from the hostel. After Rohit Vemula’s suicide it became the symbol of resistance for students of marginalised communities on campus.

Yesterday, prior to the screening of the BBC documentary which dubbed the riots as ethnic cleansing a member of the Fraternity Movement reminded the gathering that they were committed to raising voices of the marginalised in campus spaces. The ABVP protested against the screening but no formal complaint has been lodged so far.