37 students behind JNU violence identified: Delhi police

The Delhi police say they have identified 37 students behind the January 5 violence on JNU campus from a WhatsApp group created during the day. They said those identified belonged neither to the Left nor to any right-leaning organisations.

Those identified were in favour of the semester registration process and wanted to enrol themselves, the sources said.

On Friday, the police said, WhatsApp group Unity Against Left, believed to have been created while the violence escalated on the JNU campus, was under the scanner. Addressing a press conference, the police had claimed that nine students, seven of whom are from Left-leaning organizations including JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh, were identified as suspects in the violence on the varsity campus.

The others included Dolan Samanta, Priya Ranjan, Sucheta Talukdar, Bhaskar Vijay Mech, Chunchun Kumar (an alumnus of JNU) and Pankaj Mishra.

The remaining two suspects named by police are Vikas Patel and Yogendra Bharadwaj. Police sources said the two were from RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The preliminary findings in the probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the police also released pictures of the nine suspects.

The police also claimed that the violence was a fallout of the online registration process and that tension was brewing in the university since January 1.

The Student Federation of India (SFI), All India Students Association (AISA), Democratic Students Federation (DSF) and All India Student Federation (AISF) had been allegedly ‘creating nuisance and threatening the students’ against the recently started online admission for the winter semester in the varsity, the police had said.

The students union of JNU, however, had termed the press conference ‘bogus.’ Several students of the varsity said they had received notices from Delhi Police seeking a meeting with them in the next few days.