New Delhi : Another JNU student, facing sedition charges for allegedly raising “anti-India” slogans on the campus, joined the police investigation in the case which is being given to the Special Cell that probes terror cases while arrested JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar said his attackers in court seemed “highly motivated” while police didn’t intervene.
Meanwhile, a court extended police custody, by two days, of the two other arrested Jawaharlal Nehru University students.
Ashutosh Kumar joined the police investigation on Saturday morning after the investigating agency on Friday night asked him to do.
Sucheta De, the national president of radical Left All India Students’ Association (AISA), said Ashutosh has gone to the police station to join the probe, adding he, and other accused Rama Naga and Anant Prakash Narayan told police a few days ago their intention to join the enquiry, gave their contact number and told police to call them whenever needed.
Along with JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar and students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, Ashutosh, Naga and Narayan have been facing sedition charges for allegedly raising “anti-national” slogans.
Khalid and Bhattacharya were on Saturday sent to further two days police custody, sources said.
The proceedings were not held in Patiala House Courts complex here due to security concerns but in a south Delhi police station, where a magistrate was called for conducting the remand proceedings, said sources.
Meanwhile, Kanhaiya Kumar, in a video aired by channel CNN-IBN, said the the mob that beat him up at the Patiala House Court seemed to be “highly politically motivated” and “well prepared for the attack”.
Kanhaiya Kumar and a few journalists were assaulted at the Patiala House Courts complex on February 15 and 17.
The Delhi Police did not take any action while the attackers escaped, he said in the video which CNN-IBN said is footage of Kanhaiya Kumar testifying before a Supreme Court-appointed panel investigating the court violence.
Kanhaiya Kumar said the lawyers’ mob was prepared since as soon as they saw him at the entrance of the complex, he heard them calling other people to tell them Kanhaiya had arrived.
The lawyers started attacking me while raising slogans, he added.
He also told the panel that the mob also attacked the police officials who escorted him.
“The lawyers kept beating me right from the front gate till the court room. One of the attackers managed to enter the corridor of the court with me. He was also present in the room adjoining the court room, where proceedings were scheduled to be held,” said Kanhaiya Kumar.
“I informed the Delhi Police present in the court that he is the person who attacked me. The attacker was not even dressed in lawyer’s uniform. Delhi Police didn’t even try to arrest him and the attacker fled from the spot. I was disrobed during the attack and also lost my footwear,” he added.
Asked by the panel how police failed to provide securityand allowed the attacker inside, Deputy Commissioner of Police, New Delhi, Jatin Narwal said that he immediately rushed to the spot but could not recognize the attacker since he came with the South district personnel, while an official from the South district said the man claimed to be Kanhaiya Kumar’s lawyer.
Outgoing Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi on Saturday said he has asked the case be transferred to the Special Cell, since it needed “focused investigation” and local police “would not be able to put the focus which the case demands as they have to deal with numerous routine law and order affairs”.