New Delh: BJP leader Shatrughan Sinha on Wednesday backed JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, who has been arrested on sedition charges for allegedly raising anti-India slogans at university campus, arguing that he had done nothing of the sort.
“Have heard the transcript of speech of Kanhaiya, our Bihar boy president of JNUSU. He has said nothing anti-national or against constitution,” Sinha tweeted.
“Hope, wish and pray that he is released soon, sooner the better,” he wrote on his twitter account.
Bollywood veteran Sinha is a Lok Sabha member from Patna and is known for criticising his party on various occasions.
Expressing his concern over the incidents in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), Sinha said: “JNU is going through a crisis for reasons best known to (the) politicians. It is an institution of international repute, enviable record and history.”
“It is a seat of learning for some of India’s brightest young minds and also some very respectable teachers. Save it from further embarrassment,” he said in a succession of tweets.
He, however, asserted to be very cautious while making sweeping statements maligning an institution.
“They are our own children and our own students. If students, teachers or politicians make accusations, they need to be prepared to substantiate them with hard facts that they can stand by,” he tweeted.
JNU students last week had organised a meet to mourn the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) co-founder Maqbool Bhat, where anti-India slogans were raised.
Another commemorative meeting was held at the Press Club of India in Delhi where also anti-India slogans and placards were raised.
Later Delhi Police on February 12 had arrested Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union (JNUSU) president Kumar here on charges of raising anti-India slogans.
On Monday, before he was to be produced at the Patiala House Court, some lawyers attacked journalists and JNU students in the complex.
O.P. Sharma, one of the three BJP legislators in Delhi, was filmed chasing and attacking a CPI activist on a road near the court.