New Delhi: Arrested JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar was allegedly attacked by lawyers at Patiala House Court premises on Wednesday.

A group of lawyers bet him up as the police produced him in the court, said media reports.

The Supreme Court has sent a team of lawyers under police protection on a fact finding mission.

Earlier, in an open defiance of Supreme Court order, a large group of men dressed in lawyers’ robes barged into the Patiala House court complex and allegedly beat up a journalist and a student ahead of the hearing in the sedition case of JNU students’ union President Kanhaiya Kumar.

The group, which could be seen raising slogans “Vande Mataram” and waving India’s flag in the court premises, was led by Vikram Chauhan, one of the lawyers who had attacked JNU students and faculty on February 15.

The journalist, identified as Anwar of news channel CNN IBN, said despite heavy police deployment, clashes erupted in the court complex and the cops’ presence did not deter the lawyers from shouting slogans and fighting with journalists and students.
The Supreme Court had, earlier in the day, restricted the number of people inside the courtroom, allowing only five reporters and two supporters of the arrested students to attend the hearing.

The apex court had acted on a petition that alleged that the police were a “mute spectator to the brazen display of brute force” on February 15.

On Monday, groups of lawyers had beaten up journalists and JNU students and teachers ahead of the hearing of the sedition case registered against Kumar.

Yesterday, top editors of national media and hundreds of journalists had hit the streets demanding action against those involved in beating up members of their fraternity in the court complex in police presence.

The journalists had also sought Supreme Court’s intervention in protecting freedom of speech.

(Agencies)

Patna: A day after the president of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on the charge of sedition, his parents in Bihar said their son is not anti-national and is being victimised for his opposition to Hindutva politics.

“My son is not anti-national. There is no question of his following an ideology of anti-nationalism. He is a nationalist like hundreds of thousands of youths of his age,” Kanhaiya Kumar’s father Jaishankar Singh, who is suffering from paralysis, said on Saturday.

Kanhaiya’s mother Meena Devi said her son is a nationalist, but not a supporter of RSS-BJP’s Hindutva politics.

“We are proud of his Left ideology. There is nothing wrong in it. He has been fighting against right wing politics and now being targeted for it,” she said.

His parents live at Bihar Maslanpur village in Begusarai district, considered a stronghold of the Left wing or communist politics in the state. There was a time when Begusarai was known as ‘Leningrad’ of Bihar, but no more.

Singh said his son was arrested under a conspiracy by his political rivals. “My son is a Left party activist and rivals of Left ideology are playing dirty politics.”

Meena said that she is confident and sure that his son will win the battle against Hindutva politics.

Most of the villagers of Kanhaiya’s native place are sad over his arrest on the charge of sedition.

“We had celebrated last year when Kanhaiya was elected JNU students’ union president. It was a proud moment for us. But now we are upset at his arrest. It is a matter of disbelief for us to accept that he is anti-national,” a village youth Santosh Kumar said.

Another villager Ramchander Singh supported Santosh’s view and said Kanhaiya cannot be anti-national. “Our soil has produced only nationalists so far.”

Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on Friday allegedly for raising anti-India slogans at an event organised by students on JNU campus to commemorate the death of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, who was executed in 2013.

(IANS)