What Exactly Happened in JNU ?

Image Courtesy:ndtv.com

Here’s what happened – masked ABVP members invaded the campus with lathis and rods and launched a murderous attack on the students of JNU. Even though the mainstream media conveniently called it clashes between ABVP and JNUSU, images from JNU appear to tell a completely different story.

The Mayhem

The attack started at 6:30 in the evening when masked men armed with lathis, rods and sledgehammers entered the campus terrorist style and attacked JNUSU representatives.

They entered hostels (girls hostel included) and smashed furniture and beat up students.

Even professors were not spared in the brutal violence.

During the worst phase of the attack, street lights inside the university were switched off. As people concerned over the violence gathered outside the gates, the mob targeted them too. Yogendra Yadav was heckled and thrown on the ground amidst chants of ‘desh drohi wapas jao’

Ambulances were attacked as were doctors who had come to help. Here’s what The Hindu reported on this barbaric strategy. There were multiple tweets including this one from the AAP

Professors who tried to speak to the media were abused with chants of ‘Goli maro salon ko ‘ (shoot them dead)

And women were groped and attacked outside the campus

As the news spread and students and citizens from across Delhi started converging on the gates, Delhi police provided safe passage to the mob.

Here’s a video tweeted by journalist Rahul Kanwal showing the mob exiting JNU while Delhi Police is watching

The Conspiracy

Screenshots from Whatsapp groups have emerged that point to the fact that the whole attack was carefully planned and orchestrated by the ABVP.

This scroll story investigates the identities of those who were on this group.

In multiple accounts, the police stood by and watched, refusing to enter the university without the VC’s permission. This is the same police that entered Jamia a fortnight ago, breaking furnitures, bones and using live ammunition against those who were protesting the CAA. Even outside the gate, the police refused to intervene as political leaders like D Raja, Yogendra Yadav and others were heckled and attacked.

So why did the VC not ask for police intervention ? From how it has reacted, it can be gauged that the university administration facilitated the entire attack. In fact the official JNU administration press release pins the blame on JNUSU and students who have been fighting against the steep increase in JNU fees. JNU’s VC (who students claim is a member of the RSS) came out with a lopsided position even before any enquiry was held. Which begs the question – Did he know what was about to happen ?

Cyclops, the security agency that mans JNU’s gates and the campus was nowhere to be found when the attack happened. Cyclops is comprised of ex-servicemen and there is no reason to believe in their bravery unless of course there were orders to ignore, retreat if not participate. In the past few years, as the new VC and people close to him have sought to completely change the ethos that JNU has been known for, nobody was allowed to enter the university without an i-card. How did more than fifty masked, armed men enter the university ? Why didn’t anybody stop them ?

The JNUTA, JNU’s teachers association has in fact directly blamed the JNU administration for the attacks.

The Background

Here it helps to provide a quick background to the violence. Students of JNU have been protesting a 999% hike in the hostel fee that makes it as costly as any other private universities across India. This, the students say was being done to kill the egalitarian nature of public higher education in India. JNU remains one of the best known, affordable and most diverse universities in the country and boasts of firebrand political leaders, insipid union ministers and Nobel laureates amongst its alumni. Yet, the Delhi police has never held back from using its lathi on its students. On November 11 these protests has escalated and the police had used water cannons prompting the human resources ministry constituting a committee to look into students demands. And yet, three months on, not only has the university administration refused to back down, it has also actively encouraged a violent atmosphere on campus. Following this, the JNUSU had given a call for exam boycott and disrupted the semester registrations that had started on Jan 1 and were to end on Jan 5. This attack was planned as a reprisal for the success of the JNU movement, emboldened no doubt by the actions of Delhi Police against Jamia last month and the bullish attitude of the Home Minister (who heads the Delhi police) regarding democratic protests.

The Aftermath

For a nation still nursing anger on the CAA, NPR , NRC fiasco , the attack triggered waves upon waves of protests. A motely group of people sat in front of Gateway of India in Mumbai and sat there all night long. Even now they are sitting at the gateway.

There were spontaneous protests as far away as the Oxford university

Even union ministers in a ministry terrorised by the Modi-Shah duo spoke up in a rare show of emotions. Perhaps it helped that the attack was on their alma-mater.