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Political leaders across party lines condemn JNU violence
Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Monday compared the violence with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, and said students were feeling unsafe in the country.
A day after masked men, armed with sticks and rods, attacked students and teachers and damaged property at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus, injuring at least 34 people, leaders across party lines condemned the violence, terming it “cowardly” and “bone-chilling”.
Maharashtra chief minister and Shiv Sena president Uddhav Thackeray on Monday compared the violence with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attacks, and said students were feeling unsafe in the country.
“The attack on JNU students on Sunday night reminded me of the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack. Students are feeling unsafe in the country. I will not allow anything like JNU to happen in Maharashtra,” he told reporters.
Asked about the demand by members of the Opposition for home minister Amit Shah’s resignation, Thackeray said, “The priority should be to bring the assailants to justice...politics over it can wait.” To a query on protests by students at the Gateway of India against the JNU violence, the chief minister said, “I understand their rage. I am also equally unhappy with what has happened in JNU.”
Congress president Sonia Gandhi hit out at the ruling BJP at the Centre, underscoring that the violence by India’s young on the campus was “horrifying and unprecedented”.
“The voice of India’s youth and students is being muzzled everyday. The horrifying and unprecedented violence unleashed on India’s young by goons with active abetment of the ruling Modi government is deplorable and unacceptable,” she said in a statement. “Yesterday’s bone chilling attack on students and teachers in JNU, Delhi, is a grim reminder of the extent the government will go to stifle and subjugate every voice of dissent,” she added.
Former finance minister and senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the incident was “the most clinching evidence that we are rapidly descending into anarchy”.
Later on Monday, the Congress constituted a four-member fact-finding team that comprises MP Sushmita Dev and former NSUI president Amrita Dhawan to give a report on the JNU incident.
Two office-bearers of the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU), including president Aishe Ghosh, were badly injured. The JNUSU accused the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh’s student wing Akhil Bharatiya Vidhyarthi Parishad (ABVP) for the violence. The ABVP, in turn, has blamed the Left for the violence.
Meanwhile, under fire from the opposition parties, the BJP accused the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), and the Left of “creating an atmosphere of unrest in the country”.
“I condemn the violence which took place last night in JNU. Some elements from Congress, Aam Aadmi Party and the Left are deliberately trying to create an atmosphere of violence and unrest in the country, especially in universities. This should be investigated,” Union minister Prakash Javadekar said in a tweet.
Delhi chief minister Arvind Kejriwal and AAP convener expressed his shock over the violence at the JNU and asked how the country progress if students are not safe in the university campuses.
“I am so shocked to know about the violence at JNU. Students attacked brutally. Police should immediately stop violence and restore peace. How will the country progress if our students will not be safe inside the university campus?” tweeted Kejriwal.
The Communist Party of India (Marxist) hit out at the JNU Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, accusing him of allowing the rampage against students to continue on the university premises. “Whatever happened in JNU is unacceptable and condemnable. Rampage continued for hours. The intruders are not students of JNU who organized this pre-planned attack. The VC must be sacked immediately. We demand President should sack VC,” said party general secretary Sitaram Yechury.
West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee, too, attacked the BJP calling the violence a “fascist surgical strike” .
“Whatever is happening across the country is very disturbing... I, too, was involved in student politics at one point in time, but never have I witnessed this sort of an attack on students and educational institutions,” the Trinamool Congress chief said.
The All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) president Asaduddin Owaisi alleged that the “cruel attack” was meant to “punish” the students as they “dared to stand up”.
“In solidarity with the brave students of JNU. This cruel attack is meant to ‘punish’ JNU students because they dared to stand up. It’s so bad that even Union Ministers are tweeting helplessly. Modi Sarkar must answer why cops are siding with goons,” the Hyderabad MP tweeted.
Union minister Smriti Irani, however, warned against using campuses and students for political means.
“I had said it earlier and reiterating it now that educational institutions should not be made ‘rajniti ka akhada’ (political battlefield) as it affects the life and progress of our students,” the Union minister said while speaking to reporters. “I hope students will not be used as ‘rajnitik mohre’ (political tools),” Irani added.
