The court postponed the hearing as the Delhi police sought a fresh remand of Kanhaiya after Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, two other JNU students accused in the sedition case, surrendered to the police last night. According to sources, the students told the police that the event was held without permission and pro-separatists slogans may have been raised at the gathering.
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Escorted by police, Kanhaiya’s lawyers Sushil Bajaj and Vrinda Grover had thereafter rushed to the high court Registrar yesterday and mentioned the petition when certain deficiencies were pointed out in it. They resurfaced in JNU campus on Monday night and surrendered before police.
JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar at Patiala House court last week.
Jawaharlal Nehru University students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, who are facing sedition charges, were on Wednesday sent in a three-day police custody by a Delhi court. The police had applied for the production warrant of Kumar on Wednesday on the ground that he was needed to be confronted with the other two students in view of the discrepancies in their statements regarding the controversial JNU event.
In its 13-page status report filed before Justice Pratibha Rani, the police claimed that besides Kanahiya and other accused persons, some “foreign elements” were also present during the event on February 9 in JNU and they had covered their faces to hide their identity. The police said Kumar, if released on bail, “may influence witnesses and also hamper the investigation ” .
Khalid and Bhattacharya are among the five students who, along with JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar, had allegedly shouted anti-national slogans at an event organised in the university campus to mark the death anniversary of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru on February 9.
Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya surrendered after Delhi High Court’s stern message that the duo could not dictate the terms of their surrender. There is no multiple video footage.
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“While Khalid has maintained that he did not engage in any sloganeering, Anirban asked the investigators how the nature of slogans were anti-national at all”, the source said. The police asked why such event was organised and from where did the money came.
