IS suspects wait while JNU row takes over Patiala House court

Even as all eyes were fixed on Metropolitan Magistrate Loveleen’s courtroom where a sedition case against JNU student body president Kanhaiya Kumar was to be heard, men suspected of being IS operatives were waiting outside Patiala House Court Complex hoping to make it inside the premises for their hearing.

Even as all eyes were fixed on Metropolitan Magistrate Loveleen’s courtroom where a sedition case against JNU student body president Kanhaiya Kumar was to be heard, men suspected of being IS operatives were waiting outside Patiala House court complex hoping to make it inside the premises for their hearing.

A lawyer shouts slogans at Patiala House Courts where JNUSU President Kanhaiya Kumar was being produced in New Delhi on Wednesday. (PTI Photo)

“They were waiting since the morning,” said advocate Akram Khan who represents eleven of the seventeen men who are currently in the custody of NIA on allegations of being sympathisers of the Islamic State.

Five of them were waiting in a police van outside the premises and seven were inside the court premises lock-up for the whole day, Khan confirmed.

While four men of the seventeen men in total were not produced despite court warrants, the NIA court eventually gave them a hearing at five in the evening, after the ruckus over Kumar’s case had died down a little.

Twelve men were sent to Tihar while one Najeez Khan was sent to police custody for further interrogation on some recoveries made on him, sources said. The men will be produced before the District Judge Patiala House on March 1.