New Delhi: In fresh attack on the NDA government, JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar on Friday vowed to wage a “direct fight” against “dictatorship” as he accused it of targeting universities across the country and sought support of all democratic forces saying it was about saving the country.

He said those talking about Constitution should allow law to take its own course in the sedition case in which he as well as JNU PhD scholars Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya were arrested, noting delivering justice on street was not acceptable.

“You may not agree with my politics. It is not about JNU only. The universities are being attacked across the country. Now our fight is direct against dictatorship. All democratic people will have to come together. This unity is required in the country,” he said at the India Today conclave here.

Kanhaiya said while the question confronting the people today was about saving the country, the whole JNU episode was given a national versus anti-national spin. “The whole episode has been portrayed as a case of national versus anti-national. The job of a patriot is not to use a black law like sedition against people of the country, against youngsters and students.

“You are behaving with them in a way as if you have become the British and we are the soldiers of Bhagat Singh. If you don’t hesitate to use a black law like sedition, then we don’t have any problem in becoming the sepoys of Bhagat Singh,” he said.

Speaking on the occasion, JNUSU Vice President Shela Rashid said the very idea of India which stands for accommodation and acceptance is under threat. “Since politics decides our future, we will decide our own politics. Universities are democratic places. We need to protect them from RSS,” she said.

During her short but passionate address, Shela, who hails from Jammu and Kashmir, said she grew up watching a very violent image of India but JNU gave her the democratic space. She said the ABVP raises very violent slogans as well which are specially directed at women but students largely do not complain against them respecting the spirit of free speech.

“We do not want to see you behind the bars,” she said looking at ABVP’s JNU leader Saurabh Sharma who was also part of the discussion. She said since the NDA government came to power, the ABVP has been misusing the political power to frame students.

Earlier, Kanhaiya said the sedition law must be scrapped. Welcoming bail granted to Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, he said all parties and people supporting democracy must come forward to demand abolishing the British-era law.

(PTI)

New Delhi: JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar, who walked out of Tihar on bail last week where he was lodged in a sedition case, on Wednesday indicated that he is unlikely to campaign in the upcoming West Bengal and Kerala Assembly polls.

“I have already said that mainstream politics is not my calling. I am a student and want to be a teacher after I finish my PhD. However, I will continue with activism even then.

“Two of my friends are still in jail, we have raised whole lot of issues ranging from Rohith Vemula case and now the Allahabad University row. There is so much to do for the students that it is unlikely for me to take that much time to travel for campaigning,” he told PTI.

After an electrifying speech of Kanahaiya at JNU, the CPM General secretary Sitaram Yechury had declared that Kanhaiya would be campaigning for Left parties in the Assembly polls.

However, he later stated that Kanhaiya will not travel to Kerala and Bengal to campaign citing the bail and other issues involved in making him poll campaigner.

The 29-year-old research scholar also hit back at Union Minister Venkaiah Naidu who had said he was enjoying free publicity after his release from jail.

“Naidu said that I and other JNU students are enjoying the publicity and should rather go study. I want to tell him what we are doing is activism but what his government is doing is politics. Does he know the difference between the two? He should know this before making such comments,” he said.

Post his fiery speech at the campus after he returned from Tihar after 18 days, Naidu had advised the student leader to focus on academics instead.

“Kanhaiya is getting free publicity and is enjoying it. Why are they getting into politics? If they are interested in politics, they can leave studies and join politics. Simple. Join your favourite party,” the BJP leader had said.

The Begusarai boy further said, “the entire country knows how difficult it is to get admission in JNU. Do they think we survive here without studying? Our motto is ‘study and struggle’, only the ones who are scared of the intellectual products of JNU call it politics”.

Kanhaiya also asserted that Naidu’s statement was “ironical” as he himself had started his career in politics as an ABVP student leader in 1973 after being elected as the students union president of Andhra University Colleges.

Kanhaiya was arrested on February 12 in a sedition case over an event on campus against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.

While he was granted an interim bail for six months by Delhi High Court last week, two more students-Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya are still in custody in connection with the event.

Kanhaiya is now leading an agitation against the alleged branding of university as “anti-national”, release of his two friends, revoking of sedition charge and academic suspension of eight students including him.

(Agencies)

New Delhi: “No direct link” has been found between Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and anti-India sloganeering at the campus on February 9, said a Delhi government report.

“I have submitted the report to the Delhi government late last (Wednesday) night,” District Magistrate, New Delhi, Sanjay Kumar, who conducted the inquiry, told IANS.

The report also stated that the role of Umar Khalid, another JNU student accused of raising anti-India slogans, needs to be further investigated.

“Umar Khalid was visible in many videos. His support for the role of Kashmir and Afzal Guru is known and he was the organiser of the event. His role needs to be further investigated,” the report states.

Sanjay Kumar refused to divulge the details but an official privy to the report, who did not want to be named, said: “The DM report says they could not find any link between what Kanhaiya Kumar said and the anti-India slogans raised at the gathering.

“No witness or video available to me could support allegation against him,” Sanjay Kumar stated in the report.

But the official said that “anti-India slogans were indeed raised in the campus. There is no doubt about it”.

“Anti-national slogans were indeed raised on the campus of the JNU. The university administration has identified few faces who were clearly heard raising anti-India slogans. Whereabouts of them should be found out and their role must be investigated further,” the report stated.

The official said that seven videos were sent to Truth Labs, Hyderabad, of which three were found to be doctored. “In those doctored versions, video has been edited and voices added,” the official said.

The state government had ordered a magisterial probe into the matter on February 13.

On February 9, a cultural event was organised at JNU to commemorate the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

During the event, anti-India slogans were allegedly raised, following which JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested by Delhi Police on February 12.

Kanhaiya Kumar was granted interim bail for six months by Delhi High Court on Wednesday.

(IANS)

New Delhi: JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar has told a Supreme Court-appointed lawyers’ probe panel that he was beaten up, pushed to the ground and injured by men in lawyers’ robes before the police, when he was brought to the Patiala House court premises on February 17.

“When the police brought me inside the court’s gate, a mob of men in lawyers’ robes attacked me. It appeared as if they were ready to attack and they were calling others also. I was assaulted.

“The police escorting me tried to save me but the police officials were also beaten up,” he said while narrating the sequence of events to the lawyers’ panel in a video shown on television channels today.

The panel of six advocates — Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave, A D N Rao, Ajit Kumar Sinha and Haren Raval, had visited the Patiala House courts premises on February 17 after the apex court was informed that Kanhaiya was beaten up during his production before the magistrate.

In another instance when he was attacked, the police, who were there, did not do anything, he said.

After Kanhaiya narrated the incident to the panel inside the courtroom, Sibal called DCP Jatin Narwal and enquired from him about it.

“How did you allow the attack to take place inside court premises? Your men were there. What were they doing? How he (man who attacked Kanhaiya outside the gate of the courtroom) was allowed to come inside,” the panel members asked the DCP.

Responding to it, Narwal said, “he came with the escort party and entered the room adjacent to the courtroom.”

The panel members then called other police officials and asked them about the incident and they replied that the person who attacked Kanhaiya had claimed that he was his lawyer.

Kanhaiya told the panel that when he was assaulted, he fell down and sustained injuries and at that time he could not see what the police was doing.

To this, Sibal asked the DCP, “that means police was there and they did nothing.”

The student leader told the panel that the person, who had attacked him, had come to the adjacent courtroom and he had told his teacher about it.

“I told my teacher that this man was assaulting me and then the police asked that person    about his identity. He in turn questioned the policeman and asked him to show his I- card. That person left the place in front of the police and the police did nothing. He could have been apprehended there itself. I had told the police that this man had assaulted me,” he said.

On February 17, a bunch of rowdy lawyers had launched a brazen attack on Kanhaiya, journalists and others and also indulged in stone-pelting and hurling abuses on the panel of senior lawyers.

The panel members then asked Kanhaiya as to whether he could identify the policemen who were present there and the man who assaulted him.

He replied, “I can identify. I had told the police that this man had assaulted me and I want to file a complaint against him. He was the first person who had assaulted me at the gate.”

At this juncture, the panel members told the DCP, “His safety is your responsibility. Do not give excuses. This is unbelievable. You are now under Supreme Court’s order and not B S Bassi’s order.”

Kanhaiya told the panel that the persons who attacked him were “highly politically motivated persons.”

He said he had narrated the incident to the magistrate during the hearing.

“I told the judge that on the first day when I was brought to the court, there was no attack and everything was normal. I am a PhD student of JNU and I am being called a traitor…I have full faith in the Constitution of India,” he said.

His lawyers then told the panel members that magistrate had asked Kanhaiya to give a statement in writing.

On being asked by the panel as to whether he was attacked inside the courtroom where the hearing took place, the student leader said “No. Not inside the courtroom.”

The team of senior advocates, after taking stock of the situation at Patiala House Court, informed the apex court that there was serious threat to safety of Kanhaiya who was beaten and pushed by unknown persons in the court.

Kanhaiya is arrested in a sedition case for allegedly raising anti-India slogans inside the JNU campus of February 9.

(Agencies)