JNUSU alleges selective targeting by administration for political activism

JNU students union, which has been at loggerheads with the university administration in recent months, on Thursday claimed that their meeting with the Vice Chancellor to raise their demands failed to resolve any issue.

“We have been seeking an appointment with the VC since long. Today finally when he decided to meet us our demands went unheard,” JNUSU president Mohit Pandey said.

“He refused to revoke the abrupt suspension of nine students. Neither he had any reply to the issue of disappearance of Najeeb Ahmad from campus two months back,” he said.

Nine students were suspended last month for allegedly disrupting the Academic Council meeting along with a teacher who was served notice for addressing them and is facing an enquiry for the same.

The students were asked by the Proctor office to appear before the enquiry panel on January 2 but they chose not to depose and hence have been given a second chance by the administration to appear on January 6.

On Wednesday, these students alleged “witch-hunt” by the administration and said they were being “selectively targeted” for their political activism.

The administration, on the other hand, has issued another notice to these students giving them a second chance to depose before the enquiry committee and has decided to constitute a separate enquiry panel for probing the role of some faculty members in disrupting the AC meeting last month.

The JNU Executive Council (EC) on Tuesday ratified the decision taken in the last AC meeting of approving the UGC notification making entrance exam to research courses including MPhil and PhD as mere “qualifying” tests, even as sections of students and teachers protested it.