There are many, including us, who are party to the agitation against booking of JNU students in a sedition case over an event against hanging of Afzal Guru but will JNU stand for S.A.R.
There are many, including us, who are party to the agitation against booking of JNU students in a sedition case over an event against hanging of Afzal Guru but will JNU stand for S.A.R. Geelani, who has been charged with the same offence, asks his brother Bismillah. Geelani was arrested in the early hours of February 15, barely three days after the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar. While six JNU students have been charged with sedition over an event on campus, Geelani is facing the charges over an event at the Press Club on the same issue. His family, however, feels the way the chorus for Kanhaiya’s release grew among students supported by academicians and others, Geelani has been given a “differential” treatment by JNU.
“The event was the same, the charges are the same. Police had been claiming that they had evidence against Kanhaiya which is also under question now but no such claims of proof have been made against Geelani. But why is the public discourse silent on him, why the differential treatment,” Bismillah told PTI. “JNU is known for making everybody’s headache its own, for standing in support of many but why are they silent on Geelani. There was a massive campaign demanding Kanhaiya’s release and now the clamour has shifted to Umar and Anirban,” he added.
Geelani, who holds a doctorate in Arabic and teaches at Zakir Hussain College, has been questioning Afzal Guru’s hanging.
