Image Courtesy: latestly.com
In light of the blatant attacks by alleged right-wing goons on the students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) issued a press-statement condemning the incident at JNU where the JNU student union President Aishe Ghosh was brutally attacked and other students were injured too.
The statement spoke of reports of women trapped inside the hostels being attacked by masked goons with acid and of them roaming with iron rods and other deadly weapons. It stated that the residences of teachers were vandalized and no ambulances were allowed in the campus for the treatment of the injured students and teachers. It also mentioned about the inaction of the police while the terror was unleashed on the students.
The statement read, “At 7:30 pm a call for protest was given for ITO headquarters to put an immediate stop to the massacre happening inside JNU and to hold police accountable for its complicity and facilitation of the terror unleashed on university students. Meanwhile students and civil society activists gathered in large numbers outside the JNU main gate. Many of them were heckled and manhandled. Some students from Jamia Millia islamia also reached there and were attacked by the goons too.”
The press statement states that only after immense pressure at ITO, DCP Mandeep held talks with some of the protestors where a demand letter was also handed to him by the students. In the meeting it was also decided that –
1. A fact finding team of students will be sent to the JNU campus immediately. This will be escorted by the police.
2. Two representatives will be sent to AIIMS trauma centre and will be allowed to speak with the injured students. These too will be escorted by the police.
The JCC said that the fact finding teams to the two sites would consist of students from Jamia, Delhi University and a JNU alumnus and advocate.
Stating that the entire nation was in a sever crisis and a situation of undeclared emergency and that the attack pointed to the failure of the entire constitutional machinery, the JCC said that the police, under the orders of the central government was either unleashing or facilitating terror inside universities. It put forth a demand that the goons who unleashed terror in JNU be identified and an FIR be initiated immediately against them.
The attack on the students of JNU was reported to be unprovoked. Masked goons entered the university shouting slogans like “Desh mein gaddaron ko, goli maaro saalon ko” apart from “Laal Salaam Murdabad” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai”.
JNU has been simmering with uneasiness since November last year, after protests against the proposed 300% fee hike by the administration escalated with the Delhi police unleashing violence on the protesting students who were fighting tooth and nail for affordable education. The University students had called for the boycott of the semester examinations that were to be held starting January 1, 2020 and were to end on January 5, 2020. Even in the face of stoic silence from the Vice Chancellor who refused to even acknowledge their concerns, the unshakable resolve of the students to not budge or shy away from their fight was seen as a success in the face of unrelenting oppression.
The current attack on the students is now being seen as a reprisal against the success of the JNU movement and an even heinous one than before for it was given a push by the allegedly complicit police and the government.
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