No arrests made in JNU campus violence case so far: Govt
Darpan News Desk IANS, 03 Aug, 2021 10:50 AM
New Delhi, Aug 3 (IANS) The Centre on Tuesday informed the Lok Sabha that so far, no arrest has been made in the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus violence case that occurred on January 5, 2020 wherein some masked miscreants stormed the university hostels and left around 39 students injured.
In a written reply to an unstarred question in the Lower House, the Minister of State for Home Affairs, Nityanand Rai, said that three cases have been registered by the Delhi Police in connection with the violent attacks on students and some teachers on the JNU campus last year.
The Delhi Police registered an FIR in the violence case, but no arrests have been made even after 19 months of the incident.
The minister also said in his reply that Delhi Police's investigation team has examined several witnesses and also collected and done the detailed analysis of footage to identify the culprits, but no conclusive evidence has been found to identify the miscreants so far.
On January 5, 2020, more than 50 masked people armed with rods and sticks attacked the JNU campus in Delhi, in which more than 39 students and teachers were seriously injured.
The teachers who tried to intervene and protect the students, as well as ambulances carrying injured individuals, were also attacked by the miscreants who left the campus unchallenged after almost three hours of vandalism.
The then president of JNU Students' Union, Aishe Ghosh, was among those who suffered injuries.
The police had admitted that they were facing difficulty in identifying those responsible for the attack as they were masked and also cited the lack of security footage, authenticated video recordings and witnesses.
Following the incident, JNU students launched a major protest both inside and outside the campus, which triggered protests by students in various parts of the country, including Mumbai, Chennai, Pune, Hyderabad, Odisha, Kolkata and Ahmedabad.
Most experts believe India’s official toll of 414,000 dead was a vast undercount, but the government has dismissed those concerns. A report released Tuesday estimates excess deaths to be 3 million to 4.7 million between January 2020 and this June.
Rejecting all opposition to his elevation, Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi appointed Navjot Singh Sidhu as the party's new Punjab unit President along with four Working Presidents.
Calling the reports of alleged snooping on prominent citizens using Israeli Pegasus spyware as "baseless", the ruling BJP on Monday said there is not a single shred of evidence so far that links either the central government or the party to this controversy.
Congress MPs from both Houses had met on Sunday afternoon at Rajya Sabha member Pratap Singh Bajwa's residence to discuss the issues related to Punjab and sought an appointment with Gandhi.
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