NEW DELHI: A day after armed muffled goons with iron rods and sticks went on a rampage on the JNU campus, hundreds of students and teachers on Monday held peaceful protests in the varsity demanding action against those involved in the violence.
The JNU administration appealed to the students not to leave campus and assured that steps would be taken to normalise the situation.
An uneasy calm prevailed in the university where heavy police deployment had been made. The authorities only allowed students with valid ID cards inside the campus. However, these measures did not assuage the concerns of students over their safety. Though an FIR has been registered in connection with the Sunday’s violence, but no arrests were effected until late Monday night.
Students fear more attacks, leave campus
Fearing more attacks, some students even left the campus for their respective residences. It is learnt that the wardens of the Sabarmati hostel resigned on “moral grounds” for their failure to provide security to the hostel residents.
Sources close to wardens Ramavtar Meena and Prakash Chandra Sahoo, however, alleged that a group of students cornered them when they reached the hostel and accused them of not providing security. There are reports that some students forcefully made the wardens sign their resignation papers.
JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh, who was badly injured in the violence, alleged it was an organised attack.
“It was an organised attack. They were singling out people and attacking. There is a clear nexus of JNU security and vandals. They did not intervene to stop violence,” Ghosh said.
“For last 4-5 days, some RSS-affiliated professors were promoting violence to break our movement. Are we wrong to ask for safety from the JNU and Delhi Police,” she said adding that the attackers were both from the campus and outside, she told journalists.
Narrating the horrifying incident, witnesses alleged that the masked people entered the premises when a meeting was being held by the JNUTA on the issue of violence on campus and assaulted students and professors. They also barged into three hostels.
Students staged peaceful marches to register their protest against the violence on the JNU campus with hashtag “SOSJNU” trending on social media.
“Today it is them, tomorrow it can be us. Violence in any form is Condemnable. We stand by our friends in JNU,” said one of the protestor.
Akarsh Ranjan from Periyar hostel said students have received threats that they should not come out from their rooms.
Shreya Ghosh, a resident of Shipra Hostel, asked how could goons enter the campus with rods and sticks and said, “The attack could not have happened without the connivance of the administration and police.”
She claimed that she had to hide in Sabaramati Hostel after the masked men chased her and some other people.
Some of the protesting students at JNU were seen humming poems of peace and reciting Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s ‘Hum Dekhenge’.
The Police has outrightly rejected the charge of reaching the JNU late despite several pleas by students’ unions, asserting that they responded to the Police Control Room (PCR) calls and law-and-order situation professionally to control the violence on the campus.
A senior police officer said that the internal security of the JNU lies with the varsity administration.
“A fact-finding committee under Jt.CP (West) Shalini Singh has been set up to look after all these aspects,” he added.
“The Crime Branch also visited the spot to collect CCTV footages and the entry register of the campus gate to identify the miscreants behind the violence,” said Delhi Police PRO Mandeep Singh Randhawa.
