On October 15, 2016, Najeeb Ahmed, a first-year student at Jawaharlal Nehru University, went mysteriously “missing”. Then 27-year-old, Najeeb, an MSc student at the School of Biotechnology, from his room in the Mahi-Mandvi hostel after an argument with the aggressive Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABP) members. ABVP is affiliated to the far right Rashtriya Swayam Sevak Sangh (RSS). Nine years down, there is not only no sign of him, but India’s “premier investigating agency” criticised over the past decade of political interference, has found no evidence behind the crime and filed a closure report (2018).
Today, June 5, 2025, nine years later, Delhi’s Rouse Avenue Court is likely to decide whether it will accept the closure report –in fact put an end to the criminal investigation—or order further investigation.
The crime had sparked massive outrage and protests outside the JNU Vice-Chancellor’s office in 2016; various student wings blamed the V-C for allegedly not acting decisively in the matter. In the years since, Najeeb’s mother, Fatima Nafees, has made fervent appeals to find her son.
The Delhi Police had initially filed an FIR under Section 365 of the Indian Penal Code (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person) and had also announced a reward of Rs 50,000 for any information on the student. Along with this, they had identified nine people as suspects. Reportedly, on December 19 and 20 2016, the police had also launched a massive search operation on campus of the Jawaharlal Nehru University.
Fatima Nafees, the dynamic and heartbroken mother of Najeeb had launched a campaign, nationwide to demand justice for her missing son and family. As reported in the media and on SabrangIndia, Najeeb Ahmed, had disappeared mysteriously from his university hostel in October 2016 and was never seen or heard from again. Najeeb was a pursuing a Master’s Degree in Biotechnology from New Delhi’s prestigious Jawaharlal Nehru University. He was an enthusiastic student. Student accounts said that, one evening he ended up in a brawl with members of a student union affiliated with a prominent political party with an extreme right wing ideology. The very next day he went missing.
At the time, in November 2016, Najeeb’s mother had moved court, which later directed the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to take over the case. Najeeb’s friends suspected foul play and Fatima started demanding an explanation about what happened to her son. But nobody seemed to have any answers. The police couldn’t explain what happened. It was almost as if he vanished into thin air! Fatima Nafees first approached the Delhi High Court with a habeas corpus writ petition seeking his production. Claiming that the police’s efforts were “slow, misdirected and subjective”, she had prayed for a court-monitored SIT (Special Investigation Team) to take over the case from the Delhi Police.
As part of its probe, the police had sent wireless messages to the SSPs of all districts in the country on the day Najeeb went missing and sent teams along various routes, including Delhi-Agra, Delhi-Bulandshahr, Ghaziabad, Moradabad and Rampur in search of him. CCTV footage from Metro stations was also examined.
The case was then handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), presumably the country’s most trusted investigative authority… and yet today, years after the CBI took over, Najeeb’s whereabouts remain a mystery. Undeterred, Fatima kept asking pertinent questions, demanding justice for her son. In fact, Fatima together with a few of Najeeb’s friends and human rights activists organised a peaceful protest against the CBI’s ineffective investigation, on the first anniversary (October 13-14, 2017) of his disappearance. “Kahaan hai mera beta? Kaun batayega mujhe,” (Where is my son? Who can tell me?), she kept asking over and over.
The CBI’s investigation has tragically also not reached any conclusion. On October 16, 2017, the Delhi High Court had even pulled up the central agency, stating that it wasn’t showing the intent to find Najeeb. The High Court had also directed a forensic laboratory in Chandigarh to examine the mobile phones of the nine suspects. Finally, on May 11, 2018, the CBI had told the court that it found no evidence that there was any crime committed against Najeeb based on the findings of the lab. Three months later, the agency told the High Court that it had decided to file a closure report in the case since it had probed all angles and had still found nothing against the suspects. Of the nine phones sent to the lab in Chandigarh, two could not be analysed since they were not in a working condition.
On April 2019, a Delhi court directed the CBI to give copies of all statements and documents related to the closure report to Najeeb’s mother within two weeks. Nafees had filed a protest petition against the CBI’s closure report. Senior Advocate Colin Gonsalves, who initially represented Nafees in the High Court, had pushed for a custodial interrogation of the accused persons. Najeeb was getting threats a day before he disappeared. The fact that they failed to do this shows a complete mockery of the system,” he told the media
Recently, the CBI told Additional Chief Judicial Magistrate Jyoti Maheshwari that they were not in a position to record the statement of the doctor at Safdarjung Hospital, where Najeeb was allegedly rushed after being injured in the scuffle, because no document pertaining to his visit existed! The CBI also alleged that he went back to the hostel without getting a medico-legal case report prepared.
The Wire had put out this video six years ago
In 2019, a 75-minute long documentary by Sunil Kumar, titled Ammi, follows the trajectory of Najeeb Ahmad case and is replete with footage from various protests held across the national capital to demand action. Interspersed with interviews of friends and family who talk fondly of Najeeb, the film chronicles the various developments in the case which made national news and caused students to protest in streets, outside police stations, courts and even outside the CBI headquarters.
Related:
नजीब की अम्मी फ़ातिमा ने कहा “मोदी मुझसे आँख मिला कर बात करें”