The Delhi Police on Friday released photos of nine students, including former students, involved in attack on JNU students and teachers last Sunday and vandalism at the university’s server room.
JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Aishe Ghosh, whose blood-soaked picture had evoked empathy, are among the nine names, of which seven accused belong to Left students’ unions, while the remaining two are from ABVP.
Those identified are Dolan Samanta, Priya Ranjan, Sucheta Talukdar, Aishe Ghosh, Bhaskar Vijay Mech, Chunchun Kumar ( all alumni), and Pankaj Mishra from the Left. The remaining two are Vikas Patel and Yogendra Bharadwaj, both from the RSS-affiliated ABVP. However, no arrest or detention has been made so far.
Aishe Ghosh said she has not done anything wrong and the allegation is being levelled to create a narrative. Reacting to the police’s claim, the JNUSU alleged the “whole point of this exercise is to save the ABVP”.
The JNUSU accused the Delhi Police of speaking the language of the varsity’s vice-chancellor and said those who were assaulted have been “implicated as suspects”.
The Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by Dr Joy Trikey, Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP), Crime Branch, has named four organisations, including All India Students’ Association (AISA), Democratic Students’ Federation (DSF), Students’ Federation of India (SFI) and All India Students’ Federation (AISF) for creating nuisance and threatening students who wanted to apply for the online admission for the winter semester of the university.
Addressing the media, Tirkey said a WhatsApp group ‘Unity Against Left’, believed to have been formed while the violence escalated, is also under scanner. “Notices will be served to the suspects and as the investigation progresses, we may come out with more facts,” he said.
“Ghosh and eight others were involved in an attack at the Periyar hostel on January 5,” said the DCP and admitted that lack of CCTV footage is a major hurdle in the investigation.
“The CCTV footage could not be fetched as the Wi-Fi based system and the cameras were all disabled. There is no primary evidence where some student or teachers can show us some proof like an originally recorded video on their phone. We have taken the help of viral videos and photographs to identify them and sought their information from the JNU databases,” Tirkey said.
“Since the specific hostel rooms were targeted, it indicates that there was an insider’s hand in it. JNU is so vast that outsiders cannot figure out hostel room at the spur of the moment,” said Tirkey.
Narrating the sequence of incident, the DCP said a majority of the students wanted to register for the winter semester from January 1 to 5, but the Left-leaning students’ bodies were not allowing them to do so. “On January 3, around 1 pm, members belonging to the four Left-wing student bodies barged into the server room, tempered with the server and shut it down. They also pushed the staff of the sever room outside. Around three to four hours later, the staff of the university restored the server. Thereafter, police registered a complaint for assault, damaging public property and criminal intimidation,” said the DCP.
An FIR naming Aishe and other has already been filed by the JNU administration. However, she has not been named as an accused yet, the DCP said.
“On January 4, some miscreants again entered the server room from its rear side and vandalised the room badly, following which another FIR was registered in that matter,” said the DCP.
“On January 5, the tensions flared up. At 11.30 am, four students were sitting on a bench in front of School of Social Science when a group came and there was an altercation between them over the admission process. The security staff who tried to save them also got injured,” said the DCP.
“On same day at 3.45 pm, members of the four organisations went to Periyar Hostel and attacked the students there. Some JNUSU members were also there, including their president Aishe,” said the DCP.
“Inside Periyar Hostel, the specific students were targeted. Thereafter, there was a peace meeting in which 120 to 130 students and teachers participated outside Sabarmati T-point between both the hostels. Meanwhile, a group came there with muffled faces. They got into a scuffle with students at the T-Point and later barged into the Sabarmati Hostel. They knew which rooms were to be targeted,” said the DCP.
However, the police did not name any group.
“The SIT officials have so far spoken with more than 40 people in the JNU but the officials did not get any actual witnesses who have seen the entire incident or recorded it,” the DCP claimed.
Meanwhile, JNUSU accused the ABVP of being the force behind the attack that has left more than 35 injured.
Reacting to the development, Aishe, who was injured in the attack refuted the charges saying the Delhi Police should make public whatever proof it has against her. She said the police was quick to take cognisance of the complaint filed by the JNU administration against her but has not registered any FIR on her complaint.
