The Congress on Thursday alleged that the mob attack at Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University earlier this week was “officially sponsored goondaism”. A masked mob attacked and injured at least 34 students and teachers on the campus on January 5.
“It has been 72 hours, the incident was not sudden but planned,” ANI quoted senior Congress leader Jairam Ramesh as saying. “We all know who is behind it. MHRD [Ministry of Human Resource Development] and Home Minister are behind the violence. This is ‘official sponsored goondaism’.”
Ramesh also sought the resignation of Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, saying it would bring peace to the campus. “With this VC, the campus cannot return to normalcy and government should force him to resign,” Ramesh said, according to IANS.
A four-member fact-finding team of the Congress had visited the university on Wednesday and met students injured in the violence. It will submit its report to Congress President Sonia Gandhi on Friday. The team comprised former Congress MP Sushmita Dev, Kerala MP Hibi Eden, former president of National Students’ Union of India Amrita Dhawan, and former JNU Students’ Union President and Karnataka Rajya Sabha MP Syed Nasir Hussain.
On Wednesday, Jagadesh Kumar had asked parties not to politicise the mob attack. “Please leave us alone and let us do our work,” he said, referring to the campus visits of the Congress fact-finding team and Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam leader Kanimozhi. On Tuesday, the vice chancellor had called the mob attack an “unfortunate” incident, and urged students to return to campus.
A mob – allegedly comprising Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad members armed with sticks and hammers – attacked students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi on Sunday evening, injuring at least 34 people. The outfit is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s student wing.
Later, a group of right-wing activists sloganeering outside the university’s main gate heckled, abused and threatened several journalists who were reporting on the violence. Several eye-witness accounts and videos indicated that in most places, police personnel present at JNU did almost nothing to stop the violence, and, in fact, allowed the attackers to exit the university without apprehending them.
Members of the ABVP have blamed the violence on “Naxals” and leftist students. However, Scroll.in traced Whatsapp messages planning the attack – as well as celebrating it – to the Hindutva organisation’s activists.
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