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Violence at Jamia orchestrated in garb of agitation, Delhi Police tells court
The Delhi Police on Tuesday said the alleged violence at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University in December 2019 following protests by students against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA “was a well-planned and orchestrated attempt by some persons with local support to intentionally perpetrate violence in the area”
The Delhi Police on Tuesday said the alleged violence at Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University in December 2019 following protests by students against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act or CAA “was a well-planned and orchestrated attempt by some persons with local support to intentionally perpetrate violence in the area”.
The police statement came as part of its opposition to a plea in the Delhi high court, seeking the setting up of an independent special investigative team (SIT) to probe the alleged violence. The police was responding to an amendment application filed by JMI students, the residents of Okhla in south Delhi where the university is located, and the imam of a mosque opposite Parliament House, in a pending public interest litigation (PIL) concerning the alleged violence at the varsity.
On the evening of December 15, 2019, Delhi Police had entered the JMI campus, fired tear gas shells and baton-charged students and some locals inside the campus after violence broke out near the university. At the time, police had defended the decision to enter the campus, saying the rioters -- a majority of whom were local residents --had entered the campus and hurled stones from inside.
After the incident, however, several videos surfaced on social media in which police teams were purportedly seen breaking CCTV cameras, beating students, and firing tear gas shells on the campus, particularly its central library.
On Tuesday, the Delhi police said that the amendment application was a “disguised attempt” by a third party interloper to interfere in criminal matters in the garb of PIL, adding that a “stranger” cannot seek a judicial inquiry or investigation by any third-party agency.
It further said that the petitioners’ prayer suggesting the names of persons to be nominated to the SIT was “untenable, smacks of malice and seeks to ostensibly achieve something clandestinely behind the facade of a public interest litigation”, adding that a PIL petitioner cannot be permitted to choose the members of SIT for investigating and prosecuting any alleged offence.
The police said that only prayer that survives in the petition was for directions to set up a court-monitored committee to conduct a judicial inquiry into the alleged violence by the police and paramilitary forces.
The matter was further adjourned for January 12.
Several petitions are pending before the high court seeking directions to set up an SIT, Commission of Inquiry (CoI) or a fact-finding committee as well as medical treatment, compensation and interim protection from arrest for the students, and the registration of FIRs against the erring police officers.
On October 19 this year, the Supreme Court had requested the high court to hear the petitions concerning the incidents of violence, noting that these matters have been pending before the high court for some time now.
