Won’t shy away from using options if 5 JNU students don’t cooperate, warns top cop.
Won’t shy away from using options if 5 JNU students don’t cooperate, warns top cop.
Under attack for arresting JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar in a sedition case, police commissioner B.S. Bassi on Tuesday defended the action, saying doing away with the provision of sedition would be “unjust” and for the interest of the nation it should not be diluted.
“Diluting the provision of sedition for a section of the society which celebrates when a soldier returns home from Jammu and Kashmir in a coffin should not happen, at least for the interest of the nation,” he said after citing a few slogans, which he termed “unacceptable” even as he did not directly refer to the controversial JNU event.
“If one needs to protect the Constitution, one has to have provisions to deal with elements which pose threat to it. To do away with the legal provision of sedition will be unjust,” the police chief said in an interview to a news channel.
“It would be wrong to say that the provision of sedition in the Indian Penal Code is obsolete. If time is the only parameter, then provisions of punishing for murder and theft were incorporated in the IPC much earlier,” he said, adding Section 124 A is a time-tested provision of law.
Questioning the role of think-tanks and intellectuals who have severely criticised him for his actions time and again, Mr Bassi said that those who are criticising the sedition law should contemplate what is happening all over the nation.
Mr Bassi also said that they will not “shy away” in using its options if the five JNU students who resurfaced in the campus late Sunday night refuse to cooperate with the investigators.
Taking a stern view of things unlike on Monday, the top cop said: “There is no doubt that seditious speeches and slogans were raised in the event concerned. We also know that some involved in it, who went absconding soon after, have now returned.”
“At this point, there is no imminent threat to life and property, for which we are working with patience. For every job we do, our tactics are dynamic.”
“Today, we can afford to wait for them (the five students) to regain some ‘sadbuddhi (better sense)’ and cooperate with the police. If we feel that they are unlikely to abide by the law, we have options available and we will not shy away from using them,” he added.
The five JNU students, including Umar Khalid, resurfaced in the university’s campus on Sunday night but the police has not arrested them yet.
