Left parties today said Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh’s statement that the JNU event had received support from terror outfit LeT was a “serious allegation” and demanded that he share evidences in support of his claim.
CPI(M) General Secretary Sitaram Yechury, who was part of the Left Front-JD(U) delegation that had met Singh yesterday over JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar’s arrest, said in a series of tweets, “The Union Home Minister has made a very serious allegation about terrorists ‘backing’ JNU protests. We hope that he has concrete proof,” he said in a series of tweets. “Considering the gravity of the charge made by no less than the Union Home Minister, we would like him to share the evidence with the country,” he tweeted.
CPI national secretary D Raja also asked Singh to share the details and added, “if his (Singh’s) ministry has such evidence, let there be a credible probe.”
Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh had earlier claimed that the JNU university event in Delhi in memory of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru had received ‘support’ from terror outfit LeT founder Hafiz Saeed, a statement that sparked a political row with opposition parties asking him to provide evidence.
While Singh said the truth that the JNU agitation received support from Saeed, who is chief of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba, needed to be understood by the nation, National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said it is a “very serious charge” to level against the students and that the evidence must be shared with all.
Rajnath’s comments came two days after a series of tweets, purportedly by Saeed, had appeared under a hashtag asking Pakistanis to support the agitation in JNU. Police are investigating as to whether the Twitter handle actually belonged to the LeT founder.
Read more about the tweet here.
Later, Delhi Police had issued an alert through the official twitter handle of the Commissioner’s office saying, “This is to alert and sensitise the student community in JNU and across the country. Do not get carried away by such seditious anti-national rhetoric. Abetment of any kind of anti-national activity is a punishable offence.” In the alert, Delhi Police had also pinned a tweet by the handle named HafeezSaeedJUD which says, “We request our Pakistani brothers to trend #SupportJNU for our pro-Pakistani JNUite brothers.”
In a series of tweets, Omar Abdullah, a former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, said the Home Minister must go public with the evidence collected that enabled him to level the charge against the JNU students.
Rajnath Singh while talking to newspersons earlier, had asked political parties not to view protests at JNU through the prism of political gains or losses.
Meanwhile, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association has issued a statement defending the activities and code of conduct of everyone on campus as constitutional.
While the JNU community upholds the right to free debate on campus, the university strongly condemns its use as a platform for activities that violate the Constitution and the laws of the land. However, there could be aberrations where fringe sections misuse the freedom provided.Jagdeesh Kumar, Vice Chancellor, JNU
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