Trouble is mounting for Delhi Police as Police Commissioner BS Bassi’s assertion that Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was only jostled will come under legal scrutiny.
Advertisement
The court had said that the security of Kanhaiya Kumar and those present in the court room should be 100 percent fool proof, indicating that if Delhi Police can’t do it, then it may seek other options.
Sedition, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment, has been used in the past against supporters of independence for the disputed territory of Kashmir.
Kanhaiya Kumar of the leftist All India Students Federation was arrested on February 12 on charge of sedition after anti-India slogans were raised during a meeting on the campus on February 9.
“I believe in the unity and integrity of India and I do not support any unconstitutional or anti-national activities”, Kumar was quoted as saying at the Pataiala House Court, where his bail plea was heard.
Television footage showed chaotic scenes as a frightened-looking Kumar was dragged inside by police, some carrying riot shields. “Nationalist” lawyers also threw stones at media vehicles parked outside the court.
Opposition parties are against the call of the government to search the JNU campus for Mr. Kumar and other students. A halt to the proceedings was ordered and a team of lawyers was dispatched to assess the situation.
India’s sedition laws were drafted by its British colonial rulers to suppress the country’s freedom struggle, and the Supreme Court has said in recent years the laws should be invoked only when there is actual evidence of incitement to violence.
A group of lawyers bet him up as the police produced him in the court, said media reports.
As protests have escalated, the chief of Delhi police faces accusations of taking political orders and failing to investigate alleged violence by nationalists loyal to Modi.
“It is Delhi’s police commissioner who is directing all this”. “We have identified the ringleaders and a search is on to find them”.
He also justified invoking of sedition charges against Kanhaiya Kumar. “Against the judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat, in solidarity with the struggle of the Kashmiri people for their democratic right to self determination”.
Advertisement
Reports are that those anti-national slogans were raised by the students of the Democratic Students Union (DSU), an extreme left group which is considered to be a front of CPI (Maoists).
