Planned attack on JNU, Govt must explain: Opposition

In Mumbai, Maharashtra Chief Minister and Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray compared the JNU violence with the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack and said students are feeling unsafe in the country.

Sonia said, “The voice of India’s youth and students is being muzzled every day. The horrifying and unprecedented violence unleashed on India’s young by goons with active abetment of the ruling Modi government is deplorable and unacceptable…. Yesterday’s bone-chilling attack on students and teachers in JNU is a grim reminder of the extent the government will go to stifle and subjugate every voice of dissent.”

Sonia appointed a four-member Congress fact-finding team headed by senior leader Sushmita Dev to visit the campus and prepare a report.

Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha Ghulam Nabi Azad said, “The attack on JNU students and teachers exposes the decisive agenda and anti-democratic approach of the government.”

Addressing the media, senior Congress leader P Chidambaram said the JNU incident is “perhaps the most clinching evidence that we are rapidly descending into anarchy.” He said, “It has taken place in the national capital in India’s foremost university under the watch of the Central government, the Home Minister, the Lieutenant Governor and the Commissioner of Police. This is the gravest act of impunity in recent times… Did Delhi Police not have any intelligence on this planned assault? If they did not, their intelligence gathering was pathetic. If they did, it was an atrocious failure of responsibility. In either event, the Commissioner of Police must be held accountable.”

In Kolkata, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee said, “I was also involved in student politics at one point but I have never seen this sort of an attack on students and educational institutions… It was a planned attack, a fascist surgical strike on the student community.”

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan said, “Those who attempted the Nazi-style onslaught on students and teachers of JNU were trying to create unrest and violence in the country…. The attackers assumed the character of a terrorist group and reached the campus with deadly weapons…”

CPI(M) general secretary Sitaram Yechury said it was wrong to portray the incident as rivalry between students and called it an assault on reason, rationality and on democracy. Calling it an organised, planned attack, he said, “For nearly five hours…..the V-C not responding and asking police to come in and restore normalcy makes him also complicit in this attack. The V-C must be sacked immediately,” he said.

CPI general secretary D Raja said Home Minister Amit Shah must explain to the nation what happened in the country’s premier university.

Calling it a planned attack, Samajwadi Party president Akhilesh Yadav hinted at the ABVP’s involvement in the attack, as the RSS’s students’ wing has so far been unsuccessful in JNU Students’ Union elections, and allegedly “wants to hijack the student union and the university”. He also questioned the role of the police and said it appears the police kept waiting outside the gate for information to go inside and take action. He wondered whether this was the same police force that went into the campus of Jamia Millia Islamia in the same national capital.

BSP chief Mayawati tweeted to condemn the attack, calling it “shameful” and urging the government to take the incident seriously. She also said a judicial inquiry into the matter would be helpful.

Odisha Chief Minister and Biju Janata Dal chief Naveen Patnaik condemned the attack and expressed shock. “Violence has no space in democracy and such attacks on students must be condemned unequivocally. Appeal law enforcement agencies to take stiff action to apprehend the culprits and wish the injured students speedy recovery,” he tweeted.

AIMIM chief and Lok Sabha MP from Hyderabad Asaduddin Owaisi claimed that the perpetrators had support from the ruling party. “I condemn this violent behaviour perpetrated by those cowards who definitely have support from the ruling party… there is no doubt that these people had been given a green signal by the powers (that) be… They might have covered their faces but their ideology has exposed them… We appeal to BJP. You are certainly in power. But how long you will save these people? All these Frankensteins are yours. Police in Delhi report to you. You have not learnt any lesson from Jamia Millia,” Owaisi said. —With PTI inputs