JNU controversy: Kanhaiya Kumar to stay in Tihar till March 2

JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was sent to judicial custody on Friday till March 2, after Delhi Police told a local court that they no longer need to interrogate him.

JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was sent to judicial custody on Friday till March 2, after Delhi Police told a local court that they no longer need to interrogate him.

JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, arrested on charges of sedition, is being escorted by police personnel at Patiala House Court in New Delhi.(PTI)

Kumar, who was late Thursday night remanded to police’s custody so he could be confronted with his co-accused, was sent back to Tihar jail by the metropolitan magistrate.

The police had on Thursday sought a day’s police remand for Kumar, saying the version of events he had given in his statement did not match with that of his two arrested co-accused — Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya.

Around 4.20pm, Kumar left the premises of the RK Puram police station for Tihar, sources said, adding that the police was likely to ask for more time to interrogate Umar and Anirban, whose police custody ends on Saturday.

The police source claimed that Kanhaiya has so far maintained that on February 9, he came out of his room only when he got to know about a possible confrontation between two groups over the event inside the campus and has dissociated himself with the event.

While Khalid has so far denied having indulged in any anti-national sloganeering, Anirban challenged claims that the slogans mentioned by the police were anti-national in nature.

The police also showed them raw footage of the video of the February 9 event to ascertain identities of others involved in it, especially whom the police had earlier termed as “foreign elements”.

In the statement attached with the FIR, police had identified Umar and Anirban as the “main organisers” and later in the court, the investigators mentioned about the presence of “foreign elements” (outsiders) in the event organised on campus on February 9.