JNU violence: Maharashtra minister joins students protest in Mumbai

The overnight protest by students at the Gateway of India here against the violence at the
Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi continued on Monday.

Maharashtra minister Jitendra Awhad of NCP joined the students at the protest and sat with them discussing their demands.

“When people begin to fear intellect, there is anarchy,” the minister told reporters.

“I am going to convey feelings of the students to the government. When students agitate, one should understand that this is a serious issue,” he said.

The students shouted slogans condemning the violence. After the protest began on Sunday midnight, a group of students held a candlelight vigil to show solidarity with the JNU students.

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Youngsters, mostly students from different colleges in Mumbai, assembled on pavement across the Taj Mahal Palace Hotel near the Gateway of India to condemn the violence.

It was an “impromptu assembly at a short notice”, a student said.

Meanwhile, NCP workers staged a protest outside the BJP office in Mumbai to show solidarity with JNU students.

They shouted slogans against Home Minister Amit Shah. They were taken into custody, police said.

Violence broke out in JNU on Sunday night as masked men armed with sticks and rods attacked students and teachers and damaged property on the campus, prompting the
administration to call in police which conducted a flag march.

At least 28 people, including JNU Students Union (JNUSU) president Aishe Ghosh, were injured as chaos reigned on the campus for nearly two hours.

Eyewitnesses alleged that the attackers entered the premises when a meeting was being held by JNU Teachers Association over the issue of violence on the campus, and
assaulted students and professors. They also barged into three hostels.

Video footage aired by some TV channels showed a group of men, who were brandishing hockey sticks and rods, moving around a building.

The Left-controlled JNUSU and the RSS-backed Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) blamed each other for the incident.