The Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) on Saturday criticised the police for allegedly shielding ABVP activists in the January 5 violence. In a media briefing, the JNUSU leaders narrated the sequence of events starting from January 4 in the campus.

“On January 4 at 6 am, a group of students of Botany school saw some guards with masked faces, on which they called the JNUSU leader and its president Aishe Ghosh,” JNUSU leader said.

“When she arrived, one of the guards slapped her and manhandled some other students. Later in the afternoon, some School of International Studies (SIS) faculty, Dean and others manhandled the students,” they said.

Later in the day, a crowd started gathering at the Botanical Sciences school and an SHO was also there, they told.

A union leader further told that when they said that there could be violence, then the police went away saying that they are going to have tea.

“Security personnel disappeared from Sabarmati Hostel on January 4. You can check the attendance register, the guards didn’t sign on January 4 and 5. The hostel president also wrote a letter regarding the lack of security,” said a student.

On the next day, the day of violence, January 5, around 2 pm, many students carrying sticks and other similar implements started gathering at the admin block. They told, “One Muslim student, who was passing by, was made communal threats.”

Around 5.15 p.m, some students assembled near the house of Tapan Bihari, a faculty, who was also carrying a staff.

Students told that during the JNUTA protest, students saw a group of people, including teachers, approaching with sticks in their hands. The teachers formed a human chain to protect students, but the group started throwing stones at them.

They further alleged that the mobs started attacking the rooms of non-ABVP students and specifically targeted northeastern Kashmiri students.

They said that the police was informed about every incident since 3 pm.

The Delhi Police’s Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing the violence on Friday identified nine suspects in the case. These nine suspects also involve JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh who suffered serious head injury during the violence.