JNU Administration Constitutes 5-Member Team To Probe Violence On January 5

Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) administration has constituted a five-member team to look into the violence that took place in the campus on January 5. The decision comes after JNU vice-chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar met some representatives of the students on Saturday. Kumar blamed outsiders for the violence that took place inside the campus.

"This is a problem that many illegal students are staying in hostels. They could be outsiders. They may be participating in any possible violence because they have nothing to do with the university," Jagadesh Kumar was quoted as saying by news agency ANI.

"The terror created by some of the activist students went to such an extent that many of our students had to leave the hostels. From the past several days, we have enhanced security in the campus to make sure that innocent students are not hurt," he said.

Meanwhile, Delhi Police has identified 37 students from a WhatsApp group created during the January 5 violence on the JNU campus, sources said. Those identified are students who were in favour of the semester registration process and wanted to enrol themselves, the sources said. On Friday, police said the WhatsApp group, 'Unity Against Left', believed to have been created while the violence escalated on the JNU campus, was under the scanner.

The Delhi Police on Friday had named nine students as suspects in the violence in the varsity campus but did not name any group yet for the brutal attack by masked goons on students and teachers that left 36 injured. It means question still remained on the identity of the masked people photographed at Sabarmati hostel at the Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday and terrorising the campus for three hours with sticks, rods and sledgehammers.

The police also claimed that the January 5 violence was a fallout of the online registration process and that tension was brewing in the university since January 1. The officer said Ghosh and eight others were involved in an attack at the Periyar hostel on January 5. Those identified are Dolan Samanta, Priya Ranjan, Sucheta Talukdar, Aishe Ghosh, Bhaskar Vijay Mech, Chunchun Kumar (an alumni) and Pankaj Mishra. The other two suspects named by police are Vikas Patel and Yogendra Bharadwaj. Police sources said the two are from the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).