JNU-Afzal Row: Political Parties Enter the Fray, Slam Each Other

Residents of Munirka village protest outside JNU against the organising of a meet to “mourn” the hanging of Afzal Guru. (Photo: PTI)

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students have been booked for sedition after the administration of the university ordered a “disciplinary” enquiry into the holding of a pro-Afzal Guru event on campus.

JNU students union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on Friday on the charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy after “anti-India” slogans were allegedly raised during the event.

A case of sedition against several unknown students was lodged on Wednesday under IPC Sections 124A (sedition), 120B (criminal conspiracy) and 34 (acts done by several persons with a common intention) by BJP MP Maheish Girri and ABVP.

Denouncing the protest march in JNU against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, HRD Minister Smriti Irani said:

Let mother India be praised. The nation will never tolerate insult to mother India.

Left parties questioned the arrest of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Singh and asked Delhi Police to not act in “connivance” with ABVP to target the “entire Left” even as they likened the ongoing developments in the varsity campus to “situations during Emergency”.

As a political party, we condemn any anti-India slogan.If law enforcing authorities want to act against those elements, let them do it in accordance with law. But in the name of taking action against such elements, they should not target entire Left students’ bodies.

<b>D Raja, CPI National Secretary</b>

Congress lambasted the BJP over handling of the JNU controversy, accusing it of “curbing” students’ voice but asserted that debates on campuses cannot be hijacked by anti-India sentiments.

Claiming a pattern in the government’s role in the issues concerning FTII, IIT Madras, Hyderabad Central University (HCU), it asked BJP to stop branding JNU as anti-national and raised questions over the NDA dispensation’s “capacity to tolerate a different point of view”.