‘Mob violence not possible without admin connivance’

NEW DELHI: Even as protests continued for the third consecutive day on Wednesday over the brutal attack unleashed by masked goons on students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University, about a dozen-odd criminal complaints were filed by the victims against the perpetrators of violence on campus. Expressing solidarity with the victims, the students of Delhi University’s St Stephen’s College boycotted classes and demanded immediate action against the culprits.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) alleged that the attack on students and faculty teachers by masked mob with iron rods, lathis and stones, could not have been possible without the connivance of the university administration and inaction by the police.

The JNUTA members also slammed vice-chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar for asking students to put the past behind and return to the varsity premises. “How can students go back to hostels or classrooms when they do not feel safe? How can teachers go back to teach when they do not feel safe?” said a statement issued by the JNUTA.

“The command to students and faculty to forget and accept administrative terror as normalcy is an insult to injury.

“The mob violence could not have been possible without the connivance of the administration and deliberate inaction by Delhi Police,” stated JNUTA.

However, another section of teachers, under the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Federation, alleged that a few students have been “radicalised” following instigation from JNUTA.

JNU students’ union president Aishe Ghosh too filed an attempt to murder complaint with the Vasant Kunj North police station on Tuesday night. In her complaint, Ms Ghosh identified one of the attackers and named the dean of School of International Studies and some students affiliated with the ABVP for threatening her.

“At 6:30 pm, we were at Sabarmati T point when we saw a number of students who were at a peaceful assembly started panicking and running towards Tapti hostel. While I tried to calm them down, we saw a mob with the clear intention of killing and injuring persons who were part of the peaceful gathering,” she said in the complaint. Meanwhile, the police claimed most masked men  are suspected to be from JNU and the case is on the verge of being cracked.