Before JNU attacks, the hate mongering that panned out on WhatsApp

Hours before students and faculty members of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) were brutally thrashed by masked miscreants on Sunday (January 5), a few WhatsApp groups were busy planning the attack.

WhatsApp messages from groups that went by names such as ‘Unity against left’, ‘Friends of RSS’, ‘Left Terror Down Down’ etc., sourced by prominent news websites show incensed exchanges between members and attempts to rally support for the attack. Post the attack, members were seen revelling in the joy of having beaten “traitors” and “commies” black and blue.

Sample this thread.

“War still going on,” posted a member of the ‘Friends of RSS’ group at 5.16 pm on Sunday.

“Saalo ko hostel mein ghush ke tode. Bilkul…Ek baar thik se aar paar karne ki jarurat hai. Abhin ahi marenge salo ko to, kab marenge. Gand macha rakha hai komiyo ne (We entered the hostel and bashed them up. We need to decide it for once and all, if we don’t strike now then when these commies have made a mess of it all),” says the next message at around 7.03 pm.

It was posted just an hour after masked assailants went on a wild rampage, vandalising property and assaulting students with iron rods on campus.

There, however, are conflicting reports on the identity of the person posting the inciting message.

According to a report in Scroll.in, the number was traced to Saurabh Dubey, who as per his Facebook account is an assistant professor at Shaheed Bhagat Singh Evening College of the University of Delhi. He reportedly runs a group called ‘JNUites for Modi’.

Indian Express, on the other hand identifies him as a PhD scholar from the School of International Studies and a member of ABVP. When Indian Express, called the number, the person reportedly refused to have posted the message and said that someone had misused his number.

Faces behind the ambush

A few hours before, at around 5.33 pm, a member of the same group was seen shoring up support against the Left.

“Pls join this group for unity against left terror. Ab pakadkrin logo ko mar lagni chahiye. Bas ek hi dawa hai (Now we need to bash up these people, that is our only demand),” the user posted.

Responding to the message, another user asks him to bring the students from Delhi University through the “swimming side” (gate near the Khazan Singh Swimming Academy). “Hum log yaha 25 30 log hai (We are a group 25-30 people here),” he says.

Another user, going by the name JNU ABVP Sandeep Singh, as shown on the WhatsApp screenshot, suggests that Mall gate is also another entry point.

According to Scroll.in the number calling for unity against Left has been traced to Vikas Patel, an executive committee member of ABVP and a former vice president of ABVP at JNU.

In a slew of photographs that have surfaced on social media post the attack, Patel has been seen holding a fibre-glass baton, similar to those issued to the Delhi police, and entering the university campus along with a dozen armed youths.

What played spoilsport

Users of many of the numbers from which hate messages and post-attack revelry were posted later refused to have any part to play in it.

For instance, in the group ‘Left Terror Down Down’, an user posted, “We have so much fun at JNU. Maza aa gaya. In saalon ko deshdrohiyon ko maarke (It was fun, beating up these traitors).” However, when contacted by Indian Express the user said he was a student from Haryana and that his friend had posted the message on the group without his permission.

Another person that Indian Express contacted, changed the group ‘Unity Against Left’ to ‘Sanghi goons murdabad’ before exiting it. When contacted, he said he was a resident of Kerala and was not a supporter of ABVP.

The hate messages came to the fore after outsiders joined these groups and shared screenshots on public platforms. Some also changed group names into anti-ABVP ones. For instance the name of ‘Left terror down down’ was changed to ‘Sanghi goons moordabad’ to ‘ABVP Chee Chee’.

The ‘infiltration’ was soon detected by the group admins and members, who exited the group en masse, to prevent any further leakage of information.

“Bhai iss group m bhi leftist aagye (Brothers, leftists have infiltrated the group),” messaged a user in the group Unity against left after several users joined using the group’s invite link.

“Link kyu share kiya jara (Why is the invite link being shared?),” replied another.