Delhi police forms SIT to trace missing JNU student

The Delhi police constituted a special investigation team (SIT) on Thursday to trace a missing JNU hostel inmate following a direction from Union home minister Rajnath Singh as protests by a section of students raged on in the campus over alleged inaction by authorities.

“We have formed an SIT under additional DCP-II (south) Manishi Chandra to probe in the case. We have informed the SSPs concerned, as well as the police officers across India and have given out advertisements in newspapers also,” said Nupur Prasad, additional DCP-I (south).

A student, Najeeb Ahmed, went missing on Saturday following a brawl on the campus the night before.

“We have also announced a reward of '50,000 for any person who provides information about Najeeb,” Ms Prasad said.

The home minister called up the Delhi police commissioner and gave instructions to set up the special team to find the missing student.

Notably, agitating JNU students confined the vice chancellor, M. Jagadesh Kumar, and about 12 other officials in the university’s administrative building on Wednesday afternoon.

The officer said that the JNU administration is also making efforts to trace Najeeb. Ms Prasad, however, refused to divulge details about the locations where they have searched for Najeeb. Debunking the kidnapping theory that has been doing the rounds ever since Najeeb went missing, she said, “We haven’t got any CCTV footage but an eyewitness saw him going out of the Parthasarathy Rocks area in an auto rickshaw on October 15. The estimated time of his exiting the campus is anywhere between 12 noon and 1 pm.”

Ms Prasad said that Najeeb’s family hasn’t told the police anything about receiving any ransom call for his release. She also said that they have seized some medicines, laptop, and his phone, which he had left in his hostel room.

On the alleged scuffle between Najeeb and a group of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) students the night before Najeeb’s disappearance, the police said that they would either need the boy himself to lodge a complaint or wait for the university’s probe report.