JNU student union leader imprisoned in Afzal Guru’s old jail cell
“The charge of sedition”, it reads, “under the guise of which the police have been given a carte blanche to enter the JNU campus, to raid student hostels, arrest and detain students – including Kanhaiya Kumar, the current president of the JNU Students Union – is an alibi for the incursion of an authoritarian regime onto the university campus”. Kanhaiya in petition has said that there is repeated breakdown of law and order at the Patiala House Courts despite directives of the apex court, making it impossible for him and his lawyers to approach the session’s court for bail.
The IANS’ Supreme Court correspondent had informed me in advance about the decision of the apex court to allow only five journalists apart from lawyers of the accused, prosecution, and relatives of Kanhaiya Kumar inside the Patiala House court room. “Thereafter, the Learned Metropolitan Magistrate remanded the Petitioner to judicial custody for a period of 14 days”.
But police have defended their actions and say they are still searching for other JNU students who they say chanted anti-India slogans at last week’s rally.
He also referred to the report, attributed to police sources, that no concrete evidence pointing to seditious activities has been found against him. Speaking to reporters after the meeting, he said that the JNU row and the violence in Patiala House court are a “blot” on India’s image.
The lawyers’ body in Delhi district courts virtually came in defence of the attackers in black robes in the Patiala House courts, including Chauhan who was garlanded in Karkardooma courts, to whose bar he belongs. “It is not the Government’s job to destroy our educational institutions and crush expression of all students”. They allegedly meted out this punishment to 22-year-old Vinod Kumar for his alleged threats to a lawyer.
Delhi’s outgoing police chief B.S. Bassi on Thursday denied that JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was attacked at the Patiala House Court here. There have been major protests against his arrest in Delhi and in the eastern city of Kolkata, where students at Jadavpur University held a rally on Tuesday.
“If you take some precautions, we’ll tell them to move the high court today itself”, the court said.
About BJP president Amit Shah referring to him as anti-national for supporting the students in the JNU issue, he said, “Desh prem mere khoon mein hai, mere dil mein hai (love for the nation is in my blood, in my heart)”. Besides students, alumni and faculty of JNU and other universities such as DU, Jamia Milia Islamia and Ambedkar University, eminent academicians, journalists, theatre and film personalities also participated in the protest. “We have identified the ringleaders and a search is on to find them”.
The footage was broadcast on February 10 evening, following which the police sent a letter to the channel’s editor and obtained the video clip in a CD the next day.
But students like Priya Devrit insist that Kumar was not even taking part in the event, but did intervene when some right wing students tried to disrupt it.