Alumni and students form human chain demanding Kanhaiya Kumar's release.
Slogans in favour of arrested student leader Kanhaiya Kumar reverberated across Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday as teachers and students came together in a massive show of strength to oppose the recent police crackdown in the campus. The support comes even as the south Delhi police requested to transfer the case to special cell claiming the matter needs probe regarding links between JNU students and Afzal Guru.
Faculty members, JNU alumni and students from varying political groups, (excluding the ABVP) formed a human chain comprising of close to 2,000 people demanding the release of Kanhaiya who was arrested and booked for under sedition charges for allegedly organising anti-national activities on campus.
In a letter sent by south district police to senior Delhi police officials the Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) is quoted as, "The matter needs probe regarding the links between JNU students and terrorist Afzal Guru as the students were against the sentence of Afzal Guru."
The arrest came after a complaint by BJP MP over a campus event organised in support of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. BJP and it's youth wing ABVP had claimed that slogans in favour of Pakistan were raised by students present at the venue.
"The arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar and the subsequent crackdown of police is completely arbitrary. The students are being targeted simply because of the claims of the BJP MP," said Ajay Patnaik, President of the JNU teachers association. Patnaik added that the matter should have been looked into by the university first instead of roping in the police.
"This is not the first time when there has been such incidents inside the campus. We have set up inquiry committees and taken appropriate action against erring students. If we would have spared those guilty of anti-constitutional activities then the government could have intervened. Why does the government believe that we would not have cooperated with the investigating agencies," Patnaik said.
He added that government's attempt to stifle the culture of debate, democracy and dissent will not succeed.
The JNU teachers association and student bodies also received support from Hyderabad University and FTII who all critiqued Home Minister Rajnath Singh's statement in which the senior BJP leader claimed that JNU incident had backing of Jamaat-ud-Dawa Chief Hafeez Saeed.
"If they want to politicise the issue we can do the same but we don't want that. Otherwise we could have filled JNU with our DU cadres," said ABVP leader Gaurav Jha. Other members of the right-wing group told dna that their next move was to file an FIR against persons uploading a doctored video which purportedly shows ABVP supporters shouting Pakistan zindabad slogans during the confrontation on February 9.
CPM office attacked
Three youths were detained by the police for vandalising the CPM office in the national capital. The attackers were identified as Sushant, Vedprakash and Rocky Chauhan who of being members of Aam Admi Sena. They claimed that CPM leader's daughter was involved in the anti-national sloganeering at JNU Confirming the attack, CPI(M) leader Sitaram Yechury said "they tried to write slogans like Pakistan Zindabad at our office board. They were pursued by our comrades and one of them was caught and handed over to the police."
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 "JNU, JNU protests, Afzal Guru, Delhi Police")
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