Three senior police personnel were suspended on Thursday for “high-handedness with media persons and students in Delhi University’s Ramjas College on Wednesday”, ANI reported. Delhi Police Spokesperson and Special Commissioner Dependra Pathak also asked those possessing any evidence that can aid the investigation into Wednesday’s violence to hand over information.
“Three police officials (Constables Vinod and Sachin, and Head Constable Raghunath) have been placed under suspension on the basis of an internal inquiry. The matter has been transferred to Crime Branch,” Pathak said. The All India Students Association had staged a protest outside the Delhi Police headuarters on Thursday.
“I urge the students to keep their cool and help maintain the university’s peaceful atmosphere. It is my appeal to those who consider themselves political cadres, that they should maintain the dignity of educational institutions,” Vice Chancellor of Delhi University Yogesh Tyagi told The Times of India.
Earlier on Thursday, Delhi Police had registered an FIR against unknown persons a day after members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad and the All India Students Association clashed at Delhi University’s Ramjas College. A police officer said that Additional DCP-I Esha Pandey would conduct an inquiry into allegations of police high-handedness.
The policeman said that seven personnel were injured when clashes broke out between members of the two organisations following a students’ protest march against the cancellation of Jawaharlal Nehru University student Umar Khalid’s speech at a seminar on Tuesday. More than 20 students and several journalists were injured. The protest march was supposed to start from Ramjas College campus and continue up to Maurice Nagar police station, but the students were reportedly stopped by ABVP supporters.
However, ABVP’s Saket Bahuguna told Scroll.in that Wednesday’s violence was committed by “both sides, but was instigated and started by the left student and teacher groups.”
In an address to students protesting at the police headquarters on Thursday, Umar Khalid had said that the “ABVP’s attack was not about an individual”. Khalid pointed out that by halting a seminar involving a few people, ABVP had ensured their (seminar speakers’) word reached people across the country.
A seminar on Tuesday had been cancelled after ABVP members protested against the participation of Khalid and Shehla Rashid Shora. The talk was part of Ramjas College’s Literary Society and English department’s two-day seminar on “Cultures of Protest”. Stones were allegedly pelted at the conference room windows when organisers had tried to hold the seminar, though Khalid was not present. Khalid is a student at Jawaharlal Nehru University and was one of three arrested in connection with a controversial Afzal Guru event at the university in February 2016.
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