Don’t allow Delhi Police on campus, sedition charges against students must be dropped: JNUTA

JNUSU Vice President Shehla Rashid addresses a press conference on the JNU campus in New Delhi . (PTI Photo)

The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers Association on Monday appealed to the Vice Chancellor to not allow Delhi Police officials on campus, saying charges levelled against students including Umar Khalid by the Delhi Police should be immediately dropped.

Speaking to the media, a representative of the JNUTA said legal experts were of the opinion that charges such as sedition and criminal conspiracy shouldn’t be applied so frivolously and that too on the basis of doctored videos. The JNUTA has also asked the V-C to ensure that the internal committee be reconstituted as the credibility of the process is under cloud. “There needs to be a conducive atmosphere so that students can appear before the committee conducting the enquiry and not with police standing at the gate and threatening to enter campus.”

JNU Row

• Row over JNU event: Police ask 5 Kashmiri students to join probe
• JNU row: Delhi court seeks report from police on sedition cases against Kanhaiya, others
• JNU February 9 event: Four videos ‘genuine’, says Gandhinagar lab report
• Delhi HC stays JNU action against students, they call off strike
• JNU panel to discuss issues of striking students, teachers

Meanwhile, JNUSU vice president Shehla Rashid said there was still no formal intimation that the authorities wanted to meet the student union. She added that the decision as to whether the police should enter campus or not is one for the V-C to take.

“Case against JNU students is baseless and there’s no need for any arrests. The VC should demand that all criminal charges including sedition should be dropped. Police entry into campus in unnecessary and it only vitiates the academic atmosphere.”

The students, however, maintain that they will not resist arrest.