JNU violence: Delhi Police identifies masked woman in video as DU student; asks 49 students, including JNUSU chief Aishe Ghosh, to join probe

The Special Investigation Team set up by Delhi Police Crime Branch, which is looking into the violence carried out on 5 January inside Jawaharlal Nehru University campus, identified a masked woman as a Delhi University student. The masked woman, wearing a check shirt, light blue scarf and carrying a stick, who was seen in the purported videos of the violence shared on social media was identified as Komal Sharma. Sharma, who is a student of Daulat Ram College, has also been sent a notice to join the probe, the police said, adding her phone was found to be switched off since Saturday night.

“The woman was identified through one of the videos of the incident. She lives in the North Campus area. We approached her during the day but she was not home; her phone is switched off. We will send her a legal notice and ask her to come for questioning,” a senior officer was quoted by  The Indian Express  as saying. According to ANI, those students who have been served notice by the Delhi Police will be interrogated in JNU and police has asked nine people to join the probe on Monday.

Delhi Police Sources: Those who have been served notice by Delhi Police will be interrogated in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU). Nine people have been told to join the investigation from today. https://t.co/mGXdN0Rpl5

— ANI (@ANI) January 13, 2020

The SIT on Sunday said that it has sent notices to 49 people, including Akshat Awasthi and Rohit Shah who featured in a sting operation conducted by a TV news channel, to join the investigation.

Awasthi and Shah are first-year students of Jawaharlal Nehru University. They have been sent notices to join the probe, officials said. When police contacted Awasthi and Shah, they said they will join the probe. Though their phones were later found to be switched off, their locations have been traced and the two will be questioned in connection with their alleged involvement in the violence on campus on 5 January, the police said.

While Awasthi belongs to Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh, Shah is a resident of Munirka area in Delhi, they added.

According to police, the server room was vandalised on 4 January following which the Forensic Science Laboratory (FSL) team, which visited to collect evidence on Saturday, could not retrieve the data. The FSL team is expected to visit the campus on Monday to retrieve data from the server since they are operational now, a senior police official told PTI.

There have been reports that students have received emails from the server room on 4 and 5 January, the source of those emails will also be looked into, he said.

Addressing a press conference, the police had on Friday claimed that nine students, seven of whom are from Left-leaning bodies including JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh, were identified as suspects in the violence on the varsity campus. The others included Dolan Samanta, Priya Ranjan, Sucheta Talukdar, Bhaskar Vijay Mech, Chunchun Kumar (an alumnus of JNU) and Pankaj Mishra.

The remaining two suspects named by police are Vikas Patel and Yogendra Bharadwaj. Police sources said the two are from the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). Among the nine, the police will question three of them on Monday. The three women who have been served notices will be questioned by a lady official at a place comfortable for them, an official said. All the nine people have been sent notices to join the probe via email and Whatsapp, police said.

While Panjak Mishra has been asked to join the probe at 11.30 pm tomorrow at the Admin Block, Dolan Samanta and Sucheta Talukdar will be joining the probe on Tuesday, the official said. Chunchun Kumar has been called to join the probe on 15 January, he said.

JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh has also been sent a notice to join the probe but police have not received a response from her yet, he added.

A total of 60 people were part of the Whatsapp group, ‘Unity Against Left’, believed to have been created while the violence escalated on the JNU campus. Among them addresses of 37 people have been traced and notices have been sent to them to join the probe, police said.

With inputs from PTI