Easing their stand on cooperation with the Delhi police, the three JNU students who are among those the police was looking for in connection with a sedition case have written to the police on Wednesday, sharing their contact details and communicating that they are open to “questioning or arrest”.
JNUSU general secretary Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Anant Prakash, along with Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, had gone missing from the campus since February 12 after JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on sedition charge.
They surfaced back on the varsity campus on Sunday night. While Umar and Anirban were on Wednesday sent to three days’ police remand by a city court after their dramatic surrender, the trio had refused to give themselves in.
“Three of them have written a letter to the police detailing their room numbers and hostels and contact numbers. They have also said that police can arrest them or question them as and when required in connection with the case,” All-India Students Association (AISA) national president said Sucheta De said, adding, “None of the JNU students have ever avoided what the existing laws of the country tell, but all of them have been framed on basis of forged videos without any enquiry. We will fight for justice for Kanhaiya, Umar and Anirban and there is no question of the trio surrendering before police.”
The students also feature in the list of those who were academically debarred by the university.
Meanwhile, JNU Students Union has written to vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar demanding that the panel probing the Afzal Guru row at varsity starts its enquiry afresh and eight debarred students be reinstated.
University registrar Bhupinder Zutshi, however, maintained that it is for the panel members to decide if they want to start afresh and varsity will not “dictate” terms to the committee. “Any fair enquiry can take place only when actions taken by the ongoing process where 8 students suspended, are summarily revoked and the probe process starts afresh to ensure the enquiry is unbiased and representative,” JNUSU said in a letter to the V-C.
In a related development, sleuths of the Delhi police questioning Mr Khalid and Mr Bhattacharya are having a tough time cracking the duo with the former denying his involvement in any sloganeering and the latter challenging claims that the slogans were “anti-national”. The duo is being quizzed about the slogans raised during the February 9 event and the identities of others involved.
The police is also asking them what they had done as the “main organisers” to stop the raising of the alleged anti- India slogans during the protest against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, the source said. “While Khalid has maintained that he did not engage in any sloganeering, Anirban asked the investigators how the nature of slogans were anti-national at all,” the source said.
