Students gather outside Pune district collector’s office, submit memorandum to Naval Kishore Ram

At least 1,000 students from different organisations protested outside the Pune district collector office on Tuesday against the police crackdown at Jamia Millia

At least 1,000 students from different organisations protested outside the Pune district collector office on Tuesday against the police crackdown at Jamia Millia Islamia University (JMIU), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and various other campuses across the country. Protesters also voiced their opposition against the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).

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Participants demanded an independent judicial probe of the Jamia incident and punitive action against errant police personnel.

A group of five representative students gave a memorandum to the Pune district collector Naval Kishore Ram for their demands. The demands of the students included, independent judicial probe of the incident at Jamia University, punitive action against errant police personnel and non-police actors involved inflicting violence on students, assurance from government that no such brutality will be repeated in future, revocation of CAA and discontinuation of the plans to conduct a nationwide NRC.

“The police fired indiscriminately, carried out vicious attacks on the campus, and committed acts of arson under full public view and the media glare. The police barged into the JMIU library and beat up students ruthlessly. The blatant police crackdown was carried out without the permission of the university authorities. The Delhi police then detained and took many seriously injured students to a police station where they were held without any medical care for several hours,” said Talha Ahmed, a JMIU alumnus.

“CAA and NRC defy secularism and have been brought in to break the country. We condemn the acts of violence by the police. Why is government afraid of the students?” said Nadeem Shaikh from Students Islamic Organisation of India (SIO).