JNU violence: Delhi Police point finger mostly at Left groups; 2 of 9 named are from ABVP

NEW DELHI: The police tried to lift the fog around the investigations into the violence at JNU last Sunday but left people with more questions than answers on Friday.
At its first press conference since the incident that rocked the campus, the special investigation team (SIT) formed to probe the case disclosed the names of nine people who they claimed had indulged in violence on the campus - seven are from Left groups and two from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).The names of the Left groups were mentioned repeatedly but the affiliation of the remaining two wasn't mentioned. JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh, who received injuries in the violence, was among those named as a suspect.

Interestingly, while the police claimed the investigations were at a preliminary stage and they were not detaining anyone yet, grabs of videos showing the suspects were circulated. Sources clarified that they had so far probed only the incidents during daytime and the previous days - when the server had been allegedly damaged - and the investigations into the Sunday evening mayhem were still on.

SIT chief DCP (crime) Joy Tirkey said efforts were being made to identify more people. "Our investigation is based on evidence. This is the first of many press briefings on the case. It is being done to ensure fact-based reporting. The investigation has just started," he said. The crime branch has deployed more than 80 personnel to speak to teachers, students, JNU administrators and residents of the campus to get a clear picture of the sequence of events.

Since the case is sensitive and involves a prestigious university, we are taking proper care to ensure that the future of the students involved is not affected," said Delhi Police PRO Mandeep Singh Randhawa. "We usually brief the media once the investigation is complete. However, we called for a briefing because all sorts of reports were circulating about the progress of the investigations," he said.


In the absence of video footage and the faces of the attackers being covered, the police is trying other methods to identify the perpetrators of which a majority are suspected to be from right-wing groups.
The SIT claimed to have found the involvement of an ex-student, Chunchun Kumar, who is an AISA activist and has been purportedly caught on camera wearing a mask, pelting stones with one hand and holding a stick in another outside Periyar Hostel. Pankaj Mishra from School of Social Sciences, who lives in the Mahi Mandavi hostel, is on the list. Aishe Ghosh, also named, is seen in a video at Periyar hostel in a group. The fourth person is Sucheta Talukdar from School of Social Sciences, an AISA member. Priya Ranjan from School of Language and Literature, Bhaskar Vijay Mech, an MA student at School of Arts and Aesthetics, and Dolan Samanta from Centre of Historical Studies, who is seen covering her face with a scarf, are the others. Yogendra Bhardwaj, administrator of 'Unity Against Left' WhatsApp group, who is doing Sanskrit in PhD, and Vikas Patel, who is pursuing MA in Korean, belonging to ABVP, were also named as suspects.
The police have found names of 36 students who were part of the 'Unity Against Left' group, on which messages to mobilise people after the attack were being posted. This group had 60 other members who are being identified. Some of them claimed that the group was formed by an apolitical group of students who wanted to register for the winter session after the Left groups had started blocking them from doing so.
The police had initially released a wrong photo for one of the suspects, Vikas Patel, which was later rectified.
Sources said it was dark when the masked goons entered some of the hostels and very few videos have been able to capture them. The police is going to send notices to all of them and question them about being present at the scene of violence before they are arrested.
The police suspect there were a lot of internal elements who were involved in clashes at Periyar and Sabarmati hostels since the attackers had targeted specific rooms and vandalised them. Meanwhile, in order to identify 'outsiders', cops have seized the entry registers from all the eight gates of the campus and are scanning them.
"During the initial probe, we found some names of people who had entered with the reference of some students. We have asked for their details from the JNU administration and will question them as well," said a police officer. The SIT is probing all three cases of violence at JNU that have been registered since January 3.