On attack anniversary, JNU teachers’ body slams admin, police over lack of action

On the fourth anniversary of the January 5, 2020 attack on the students and teachers of Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi, its teachers’ body JNUTA lashed out at the university administration and Delhi Police for the perpetrators never being brought to book.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association (JNUTA) said in a statement that “this serves to vindicate [its] position of their complicity in the violence” and that the incident was “part of a larger story to put down dissent through brute misuse of official power”.

On that day, some 100-odd masked attackers ran amok on the campus of the prestigious university when a students’ movement against a proposed hostel fee hike was on. On the other hand, a section of teachers was unhappy over independent voices among them being silenced by the then Vice-Chancellor Jagadesh Mamidala.

“Teaching a lesson” 

Those injured in the attacks had accused the RSS-affiliated student organisation, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), for the violence. The source of planning of the attack was traced to two WhatsApp groups, “Friends of RSS” and “Unity against Left”. However, Delhi Police apparently failed to gather any information about the members of these groups, as Meta, the parent company of WhatsApp, refused to share the information.

The JNUTA has reiterated that not only did the police on campus and the university security personnel “fail to respond to several calls for help”, video recordings have shown “the mob being ‘escorted’ out of the JNU main gate by the police”. It has alleged that all these facts “establish that the violence was encouraged, if not deliberately organised, with the purpose of teaching a lesson” to the protesting students and faculty members.

More than 18 students of the university, including JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh, were injured and taken to the AIIMS Trauma Centre after being attacked with iron rods and other weapons on January 5, 2020.