PhD student Uday Bhanu says police thrashed him, cops deny claim

Hyderabad: PhD student Uday Bhanu, who was hospitalised for two days after being allegedly thrashed by the police for cooking food on UoH campus on Wednesday, said that the Cyberabad police beat him semi-conscious and a policeman threatened to kill him.

Police officials refuted the allegations. Madhapur DCP Karthikeya said that students mistook UoH security personnel in khaki to be police officials. UoH student leaders said they would move the SHRC. “They were wearing TS police uniforms. SI Lal Madar was in civils and he was brutal. He hit me on my left ear, which started bleeding. Others put me down and thrashed me while crushing my fingers with their boots. One of the cops told me, ‘We will kill you’,” said Mr Bhanu. Gachibowli SI J. Ramesh said that police did not beat the student. “This person went to hospital for fun,” he said. Students, who witnessed the incident, said that Bhanu fell down and was unable to walk.

Bhanu said he was targeted for three reasons. “The police had noticed me when I brought Rohith Vemula’s mother to the protests. They took note of me when I accompanied Rohith’s body for autopsy. I was also part of the bus yatra for Rohith,” he said.

Students were chased for protesting: Staff
On Tuesday, the police did not just throw out students from the VC’s lodge at the UoH, they also chased them as if they were criminals, according to teachers at the scene. That day after students protested at the premises of the VC’s lodge for more than five hours, a senior police official announced in the evening that the students need to move out because it was a private space. When the students did not move the police threw them out using force. The police then chased the students in the public space inside the university for nearly 500 metres from the VC’s lodge. When the students protested, the police did not hesitate to threaten them with arrest and sending them to jail. Some of the students were picked up and thrashed in the vans in which they were taken away.

One such teacher is assistant professor P. Anupama of the computer science department. She said, “Why is it that the police chased students outside the VC’s lodge? Some students were pulled, thrashed and lathi-charged near the humanities department courtyard. When teachers tried to intervene and tell the police not to treat them so, they did not listen and even threatened the teachers.” Ms Anupama said that on March 23 when JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was supposed to speak — he was subsequently denied entry — police vans and personnel were placed near the north shopping complex.

“There is tremendous intimidation by cops inside the campus. Some students said that it is like Jallianwalah Bagh,” she said.