Independent MP and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani described arrest of student activists as “witch hunt”
New Delhi:
Student leaders and activists on Tuesday accused the Center and police of “vendetta politics” against those who opposed the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) at a time when the country is blocked due to the coronavirus pandemic.
During a press conference organized via the Zoom videoconference application, former student leaders Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid attacked the police for having arrested students from Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) for their alleged involvement in the orchestration of community riots in northeast Delhi.
Independent MP and Dalit leader Jignesh Mevani described the arrest of student activists as “a witch hunt” and “a politics of the worst kind of vendetta”.
“Taking advantage of the lockdown, the police are targeting those who opposed the new citizenship law and fought for democratic principles.”
“That they are arrested for having hatched the plot behind the riots is in itself a plot by the RSS-BJP to target those who are opposed to their ideology,” said Mevani.
Former JNU Students’ Union president Kumar said they will have to find new ways to raise their voices during the lockout.
He called the arrest of students a tactic to divert attention from the government’s “inefficiencies”.
“The government is taking advantage of the lockout to take revenge on those who opposed the CAA, the NRC and the NPR.”
“It is also an attempt to scare the students and say,” If you raise your voice against us, you will also be thrown in jail like the student activists who are already in jail, “said Kumar.
N Sai Balaji, President of the Association of Indian Students Supported by the Left (AISA), agrees with Mr. Kumar and says that it is shameful that at a time when the number of cases of coronavirus exceeded 1 , 65 lakh in the country, the government targets student leaders.
“This shows that the Centre’s priority is not to attack the coronavirus or solve the problems of migrants, but to target anti-CAA demonstrators.
“It is difficult to understand how reading the preamble (of the Constitution) invites UAPA, but there is no action against BJP leaders Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur for hate speech. Spreading hate is nationalism, “he said.
Balaji also pointed out that Komal Sharma, who was allegedly involved in the attack on JNU students and teachers on January 5, has not yet been arrested. He said that the police know that during the lockdown, the students cannot go out or even find lawyers and, therefore, they arrest them.
“These are tactics to prevent the media from covering the coronavirus pandemic using the Hindu-Muslim narrative,” said Balaji.
The members of the Coordination Committee of Jamia Safoora Zargar, Meeran Haider, Asif Iqbal Tanha and the president of the Association of Elders of Jamia Shifa-Ur-Rehman were arrested under the strict law on illegal activities (prevention) ( UAPA) for allegedly being part of a larger plot behind community violence northeast of Delhi in February.
Khalid has also been charged under the anti-terrorism law.
“The government is using the lockdown to flatten the protest. A leading agency like the Delhi police has damaged its credibility to please its political masters.
“Under what political pressure is it exercising so that it has not even registered an FIR against Kapil Mishra and Anurag Thakur?” Khalid asked.
He also questioned when the cases were slapped on activists from Pinjra Tod, Devangana Kalita and Natasha Jarwal, and Zargar, four months pregnant.
“When they were about to be released on bail by the court, new cases were brought against them in connection with the riots in northeast Delhi.
“None of the arrested activists have ever supported the violence. They took to the streets to make their voices heard on issues related to justice and gender education,” said Khalid.
Accusing the police of brutalizing the students every time they go out to protest, he said that the students of Jamia Millia Islamia were victims of police violence on December 15 and not perpetrators of violence.
