Sedition case: Three other JNU students refuse to surrender
The three, members of the All India Students Association, went missing from the campus on February 12, after JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on sedition charges.
“What about the other three students, will they also surrender?” is a question doing the rounds with three Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students charged with sedition sent to police and judicial custody.
But JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) general secretary Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Anant Prakash asked, “Why should we surrender?”
“We have given the police our hostel number, room number and our contact details. It is up to the police to decide now, we are right here in the campus,” said Prakash, former JNUSU vice-president.
The three, members of the All India Students Association, went missing from the campus on February 12, after JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on sedition charges.
Students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya also went underground after Kumar’s arrest.
All five of them resurfaced on the campus on Sunday.
Khalid and Bhattacharya surrendered before the police on Tuesday and were sent to three days’ police remand on Wednesday.
“The two surrendered after the high court asked them to do so, since they had gone to the court. But we did not approach the court and never did we file for an anticipatory bail,” said Prakash.
Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Prakash were also mentioned in the letter the police wrote to JNU vice-chancellor on February 12. The police requested that these students be produced for investigation over their involvement in anti-national activities.
But a senior AISA leader said it was not their outfit that organised the event and that their members were being framed.
From the time they resurfaced, the three lived in their respective hostels and attended events held on the campus.
However, a high-level committee set up by the university debarred the three, along with Kumar, Khalid and Bhattacharya, from academic activities.
Police said they considered Kumar, Khalid and Bhattacharya as the main accused.
“Now we will decide on who is to be questioned depending on the names disclosed by the three during interrogation,” said a senior police officer.
