No charge sheet, or arrests, yet in 2020 JNU violence case

According to police records, 51 persons, including students and teachers, sustained injuries during the incident on January 5, 2020

NEW DELHI: On January 5 in 2020, a violence broke out inside the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus when masked persons attacked students inside the Sabarmati hostel. Two years on, the case is still under investigation. No charge sheet has been filed and no arrests have been made, a police officer privy to the case said.

Visuals from the JNU campus after the 2020 violence. (HT FILE PHOTO)

According to the police records accessed by HT, 51 persons including students and teachers had sustained injuries during the incident and three First Information Reports had been registered in connection with the incident. One FIR was related to “forcibly shutting down server of Communication and Information Services (CIS) on January 3”, another one was related to “forcibly tempering server of CSI on January 4” and third one was related to “clash between two groups of students on January 5”.

The first and second FIRs were registered under section 323 (Causing hurt), 341 (Wrongful restraint), 506 (Criminal intimidation) and 34 (Common intention) of the Indian Penal Code and 3 Prevention of Defacement of Public Property (PDPP) Act while the third was registered under section 147 (Punishment for rioting), 148 (Riotiing armed with deadly weapon), 149 (Member of unlawful assembly) and 151 IPC and 3 PDPP Act.

“Chargesheet has not been filed in connection with the cases. Investigation is pending in the cases. No arrests have been made,” said an officer familiar with the developments of the case.

Sucharita Sen, JNU professor who’s now also a member of JNU Teachers Association, had sustained serious injuries on her head in the January 5 incident. “I have no hope from the police investigation. I had filed a plea demanding separate FIR in my case because of the severity of the case but the plea was denied. Police had come to take my statement nearly three months after the incident but after that, I never heard from them. It’s like they have forgotten it like a nightmare,” she said. Weighing in on April 10 incident, she said “it’s sad how violence has become so normal”.

Dolan, a 25-year-old MPhil student, who had sustained injuries in January 5 incident and was also named by Delhi Police as one of the ‘suspects’ in the case, said that police took her statement once while the team had set up their officer at the campus and nothing thereafter. “What hope can one have from police? We recognised people who had attacked and told them their names. Where is Komal Sharma? Why has she not been arrested? These questions were never answered by Delhi Police?” she said.

Delhi Police on January 10 had held a press conference wherein they had released pictures of nine persons as ‘suspects’ and mentioned names of four left groups as part of the violence while they didn’t mention Akhil Bhartiya Vishwa Parishad (ABVP). The photos that were released were from during the day time when Pariyar hostel was attacked. However, Sabarmati hostel was attaked by masked persons at night.

Police had also formed a 20-member Special Investigation Team headed by then DCP (Crime) Joy Tirkey to probe the case but many officers from the team have been transferred from Crime Branch including Tirkey.

ABVP member Valentina Brahma, who had also sustained injuries on January 5 two years ago, said that she was called to record her statement once by the police after which she has also not head from them. She did not wish to comment on the investigation further, she said.

On-record comment from police awaited.