JNU row: Delhi Police conducts inter-state raids

New Delhi: Claiming to have identified the students chanting ‘anti-national’ slogans at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Delhi Police on Wednesday launched inter-state raids to get hold of the culprits.

According to reports, the police claim to have identified all the students seen in the footage of the event against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and are carrying out searches in Delhi, UP, Bihar, Maharashtra and Jammu and Kashmir.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police Commissioner BS Bassi reached the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) today to brief the Union Cabinet about the current state of unrest at the JNU.

In a report submitted to the Ministry of Home Affairs on its crackdown on a group of protesting JNU students on February 9, the Delhi Police yesterday said that Democratic Students Union (DSU) activists led by Umar Khalid raised anti-national slogans on that day.

However, the report said that Kanhaiya Kumar didn’t raise anti-national slogans but was just standing with DSU activists. Umar Khalid has been absconding since then.

Faced with mounting criticism for slapping sedition charges on Kanhaiya Kumar, Bassi asserted there was "adequate evidence" against him.

"We have adequate evidence against him," Bassi told reporters while emerging from the PMO.

Bassi was asked about reports citing inputs from security agencies that Kumar may not have raised anti-national slogans or made an inflammatory speech at the JNU event which is at the centre of a raging controversy.

He said he had come to the PMO to invite some officials for the At Home programme being hosted by him in the evening.

The Police Commissioner said there was no question of giving clean chit to the JNUSU president.

"Not at all," he said when asked whether there was no clean chit to Kumar, who was arrested last week on sedition charges. Police claimed he had raised anti-India slogans at an event in the university.