Jamia Protest: Day After Crackdown, Many Students Vacate Campus, Leave For Home

After an alleged brutal crackdown on Sunday night, the students of Jamia Millia Islamia have decided to leave the campus for their homes. Quoting sources news agency PTI reported, the situation continues to be tense with many women students preferring to leave the campus for their homes. Earlier, the varsity had declared winter vacation from Saturday till January 5 and even postponed the exams. The prestigious Central University, became the epicentre of Delhi Police’s crackdown against Citizenship Act protesters.

Soon after the violence, Jamia Millia Islamia Chief Proctor Waseem Ahmed Khan claimed that the Delhi Police entered the campus forcibly without any permission and beat up staff members and students who were forced to leave the campus.

Vice-Chancellor Najma Akhtar earlier in the day said, "I am hurt by the way my students were treated. I want to let my students know that they are not alone in this fight. I am with them. I will take this matter forward as long its possible."

Students across India’s top universities are protesting against police aggression shown to their peers in Jamia. From candlelight vigils to marches, students in Hyderabad, Varanasi and Jadavpur are showing solidarity for ‘their friends in Jamia’.

Meanwhile, students of the Tata Institute of Social Sciences have also decided to boycott the Monday classes over the police action. “In the lights of events of relentless police brutality in the past week in universities of north East India, Jamia Milia Islamia and Aligarh Muslim University We the students of TISS have decided to call a boycott of today's classes and field work,” a statement by TISS students said.

Protestors torched four public buses and two police vehicles as they clashed with police in New Friends’ Colony near Jamia Millia Islamia during a demonstration.

Deputy Commissioner of Police (Southeast) Chinmoy Biswal said four buses and two police vehicles were torched during the protest, and six policemen were injured. He said stones were pelted from inside the university campus at police personnel, forcing them to use teargas to disperse the “violent mob”.