2016 JNU EVENT: COPS SLAP SEDITION CHARGES
Kanhaiya, Khalid say ‘pre-poll’ action motivated
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police charged former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others, including Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, with sedition on Monday, three years after they allegedly raised “anti-India” slogans at an event at the university. The police submitted a 1,200-page charge sheet in the Patiala House court over the JNU event that was held on February 9, 2016, to protest the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
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The timing clearly shows it is politically motivated... We demand a speedy trial now so that the truth comes out.
KANHAIYA KUMAR, JNU ex-student
NEW DELHI: The Delhi Police charged former Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others, including Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, with sedition on Monday, three years after they allegedly raised “anti-India” slogans at an event at the university.
The police submitted a 1,200page charge sheet in the Patiala House court over the JNU event that was held on February 9, 2016, to protest the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
Kumar and Khalid questioned the filing of the charge sheet ahead of the Lok Sabha elections and said the police action was “politically motivated” and a “diversionary ploy” by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government. Kumar, Khalid and Bhattacharya — student leaders who were arrested over the event that triggered a political row between the government and Opposition parties — are out on bail. The maximum punishment for sedition is a life term.
Apart from 10 people charged with sedition, 36 others, including then JNUSU vice-president Shehla Rashid, Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D Raja’s daughter Aprajita, and students Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Banojyotsna Lahiri, have been mentioned in the charge sheet, with the police saying they are still gathering evidence linked to them. The charge sheet was filed in a sealed box before metropolitan magistrate Sumeet Anand, who posted the matter for further hearing on Tuesday.
According to the charge sheet, a police officer said on condition of anonymity, Kumar led the “unlawful assembly” and raised slogans against India. The police said they have electronic, oral and documentary evidence that establishes the sedition charges. The police added that Kumar incited the gathering to shout “anti-India” slogans.
They alleged Kumar argued with security guards when they objected to the event.
The charge sheet said forensic reports established that 10 mobile phone video recordings collected after the protest and a video clip by television channel Zee News on the incident were not doctored and captured the slogans raised by the JNU students.
“The timing of filing of the charge sheet ahead of the 2019 Lok Sabha elections clearly shows it to be politically motivated. But we are happy that the charge sheet is finally filed. We demand a speedy trial now so that the truth comes out. I trust the judiciary of my country,” Kumar said. Apart from sedition, all 10 accused have been charged with voluntarily causing hurt, unlawful assembly, rioting and criminal conspiracy. Khalid has been additionally charged for allegedly forging signatures of two JNU students to seek permission for the event on the campus.
The other seven accused who have been charged with sedition are former JNU students Mujeeb Hussain Gattoo and Khalid Bashir Bhat, practising dentist Aqueeb Hussain, two students from Jamia Milia Islamia University Umair Gul and Basharat Ali, Aligarh Muslim University student Muneeb Hussain Gattoo, and Rayees Rasool, who was then working as a freelance journalist. All seven are from Kashmir, the police said. They said that Khaild had invited the seven to the 2016 event, adding that no permission was granted for the protest.
“A charge sheet should ideally be filed within 90 days after the FIR and not 90 days before the next election,” Khalid said on Monday. “As the people of this country have prepared their own charge sheet against this antipeople, anti-poor and communal government, it has once again tried to deflect attention from its failures by raking up this issue just before elections,” he said in a joint statement with Bhattacharya. The 2016 incident had triggered protests across the country, prompting political parties to attack the government over the matter. On Monday, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram dubbed the charges against Kumar and others as “absurd”. Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad leader and JNUSU’s former joint secretary Saurabh Sharma said “a false narrative was created that footage of the incident was doctored”.