December 27, 2024 11:50 pm (IST)
JNU crackdown: Sitaram Yechury meets Rajnath Singh
New Delhi, Feb 13 (IBNS): Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury on Saturday met Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh and urged him to not persecute the innocent students of the JNU over the anti-India slogans by few, after the students' union leader of the premier varsity was arrested and slapped sedition charges.
Sitaram Yechury and CPI leader D Raja along with JD(U) leader KC Tyagi met Rajnath Singh who had earlier warned of strong action against those shouting anti-India slogans.
"We have told the Home Minister that what is occurring there is worse than Emergency. He assured us a probe," said Yechury.
He said all students should not be painted anti-national and the footage should be properly scanned before action.
He said if JNU is anti-national then one should not forget that the best IAS, IFS and other top government officials also were former students of the university.
Several students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi have been barred from academic activities over the incident of anti-India slogans within the campus in support of hanged Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, even as tension ran high on the campus after a students' union leader was arrested over sedition charges and police searched for more student suspects in the slogan shouting.
The arrested student leader is Kanhaiya Kumar, who is the president of the JNU students' union- the left-leaning All India Students Federation (AISF).
In police custody now, he has been charged with sedition. While senior ministers of the ruling BJP have said they would not tolerate anti-India slogans, the AISF said Kanhaiya's arrest is at the instigation of the BJP student wing ABVP (Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parisad).
"The arrest in the JNU is threat to the future of democracy in the country," said AISF, holding that the present government has made its face clear by the action.
JNU campus has been on the boil since a protest march was organized to protest the hanging of Afzal Guru and for the right of "self-determination of Kashmiri people".
Police action began after the anti-India protest was reported by the BJP student wing AVBP and a lawmaker.
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