KANHAIYA, 2 OTHERS GRILLED

After confronting Kanhaiya Kumar for the first time with fellow students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, who too were booked under sedition charges, the JNUSU president was sent back to Tihar Jail on Friday night, placed under judicial custody again.

A JNU security guard and a policeman, said to be witnesses who also recorded their statements in the sedition case, were purportedly seen in a sting video saying Kanhaiya did not raise any slogan.

At Tihar prison, the authorities put unprecedented security measures in place to ensure JNUSU president Kanahiya Kumar is not harmed. CCTV cameras, special prison staff and Tamil Nadu Special Police personnel were deployed outside his cell.

Strict orders have been issued to keep the student leader in a locked cell around the clock, and to lock up other inmates when he is taken out of the ward.

At the R.K. Puram police station, where Kanhaiya was again interrogated on Friday, a police team questioned him separately for about six hours, after which he was first confronted with Umar Khalid, and later with Anirban. In the afternoon, the three were for the first time grilled together in one room.

Meanwhile, the Supreme Court on Friday has sought response from the Centre on a plea seeking an SIT probe and initiation of contempt action aga-inst persons, including three lawyers who have allegedly been caught on camera “bragging and boasting” that they had beaten up Kanh-aiya Kumar and others, including scribes, in a court complex here.