JNU row: I was beaten up, injured in court before police, says Kanhaiya

New Delhi: JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar has told a Supreme Court-appointed lawyers' probe panel that he was beaten up, pushed to the ground and injured by men in lawyers' robes before the police, when he was brought to the Patiala House court premises on February 17.

"When the police brought me inside the court's gate, a mob of men in lawyers' robes attacked me. It appeared as if they were ready to attack and they were calling others also. I was assaulted.

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"The police escorting me tried to save me but the police officials were also beaten up," he said while narrating the sequence of events to the lawyers' panel in a video shown on television channels.

The panel of six advocates -- Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave, A D N Rao, Ajit Kumar Sinha and Haren Raval, had visited the Patiala House courts premises on February 17 after the apex court was informed that Kanhaiya was beaten up during his production before the magistrate.

In another instance when he was attacked, the police, who were there, did not do anything, he said. After Kanhaiya narrated the incident to the panel inside the courtroom, Sibal called DCP Jatin Narwal and enquired from him about it.

"How did you allow the attack to take place inside court premises? Your men were there. What were they doing? How he (man who attacked Kanhaiya outside the gate of the courtroom) was allowed to come inside," the panel members asked the DCP.

Responding to it, Narwal said, "he came with the escort party and entered the room adjacent to the courtroom."

The panel members then called other police officials and asked them about the incident and they replied that the person who attacked Kanhaiya had claimed that he was his lawyer.

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Kanhaiya told the panel that when he was assaulted, he fell down and sustained injuries and at that time he could not see what the police was doing.

To this, Sibal asked the DCP, "that means police was there and they did nothing."

The student leader told the panel that the person, who had attacked him, had come to the adjacent courtroom and he had told his teacher about it.

"I told my teacher that this man was assaulting me and then the police asked that person about his identity. He in turn questioned the policeman and asked him to show his I- card. That person left the place in front of the police and the police did nothing. He could have been apprehended there itself. I had told the police that this man had assaulted me," he said.

On February 17, a bunch of rowdy lawyers had launched a brazen attack on Kanhaiya, journalists and others and also indulged in stone-pelting and hurling abuses on the panel of senior lawyers.