JNU students protest, demand justice for fellow raped last week

Carrying posters, students raised slogans demanding gender justice on campus along with revival of the anti-sexual harassment committee, GSCASH, which was replaced with the ICC.

At least 120 students from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) marched inside the campus on Thursday night demanding justice for the varsity student who was allegedly raped by a cab driver last week. Students demanded the alleged rapist’s arrest at the earliest.

Students marched inside the campus on Thursday demanding justice for a varsity student who was allegedly raped last Friday.

Carrying posters, students raised slogans demanding gender justice on campus along with revival of the anti-sexual harassment committee, GSCASH, which was replaced with the ICC. Protesters said rape is just one among the series of acts of violence against women across the country.

“The march was held to protest against gender violence in the country. The Unnao rape case, for instance, saw the survivor’s family being wiped out. This march was to show that we stand alongside such survivors and to let new students know that there are progressive voices on the campus who will fight for their rights,” Satarupa Chakrovorty, former JNUSU secretary and a PhD scholar, said.

The 30-minute march, called by members of the Students Federation of India, started from Ganga dhaba and culminated at the Chandrabhaga hostel, where former MP Brinda Karat addressed students.

Meanwhile, the Delhi police said they were probing the case from all angles, but were yet to identify the suspect. “Our teams are verifying all the information the woman gave us related to the crime, the suspect and the cab and working to get clues. As of now, we are yet to identify the suspect or the cab. Our probe is on,” special commissioner of police (law and order, south) RS Krishnia said.

The woman in her complaint had alleged that the cab driver who drugged and raped her was drunk and driving a black-coloured car, which she had boarded from outside a temple on Mandir Marg in central Delhi, around 8pm Friday.

An investigator, who is not authorised to speak to the media, said, “We examined around 70 drivers of cab aggregators who were operating near the temple around that time. However, none of them drives a black cab or had booking for JNU on that night.”