JNU row: VHP, Bajrang Dal protest outside the campus

JNU students union leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested on sedition charges, 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, according to inputs from security agencies. “Long live India, shut down JNU”, they shouted and then pushed the students and teachers out.

Meanwhile, protests inside the campus by students and teachers against the varsity administration continued with teachers joining them in boycotting the classes.

“The government does not want students to have a say”, said Rahila Parween, vice-president of the Delhi unit of the All India Students’ Federation, a left-wing student union, adding, “It wants to dictate what students think, understand and say”.

A female correspondent from Indian broadcaster NDTV said several journalists and students had been beaten by supporters of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). They started checking the identity cards of the journalists and threatened the reporters to leave the court premised or face consequences.

The police must also investigate multiple attacks by lawyers against journalists and others at the Patiala House Court in the national capital, it said in a statement. Refuting the allegations against him that the arrests on sedition charges were excessive, he said, We have arrested the students based on our investigations.

Human Resource Minister Smriti Irani told reporters that “the nation can never tolerate an insult to Mother India”.

Singh also accused Pakistani Hafiz Saeed of supporting the anti-India slogans, which the founder of the Lashkar-e-Taiba group dismissed in a YouTube video. It is time we teach our students what nationalism is”, said Rohith Azad, a faculty member, who was among those who were attacked yesterday.

Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) supremo Mayawati on Monday slammed BJP leaders on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) issue and accused them of double standards on nationalism.

Afzal Guru’s hanging is a highly emotive subject in Indian-controlled Kashmir where most people believe he was not given a fair trial.

“The government and police can’t just shut down voices that don’t agree with them”.