New Delhi : Maintaining their stand that the Centre was hell-bent on branding anyone against them as ‘anti-national’, the Congress on Sunday hit out at the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government and said that the entire Jawarharlal Nehru University (JNU) was being attacked instead of initiating action over a handful of students over the Afzal Guru event in the campus.
“The question is simple. Why is the Modi Government hell-bent on locking up and demolishing a great institution which is an accumulation of liberal thought process and democracy? If 10, 20 people have raised anti-India sentiments then Congress condemns it. But why brand the entire JNU as anti-national and convert it into a police chavni?” Congress spokesperson Randeep Surjewala told ANI.
Asserting that the entire JNU student body and faculty was facing the brunt of the Centre, he added that this reflected the ‘intolerant’ and ‘myopic’ mindset by the government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Why do room to room search? Why send male policemen into women’s hostel and brand everyone who is opposing you as anti-national? FTII students were called ‘gundas’ when they protested against the BJP. Rohith Vemula was branded as an anti-national,” Surjewala said.
Lashing out at Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar’s ex-OSD Jawahar Yadav for tweeting that ‘prostitutes were better than the female protestors at JNU’, the Congress leader asserted that this was a clear example of the ministers under the Centre.
“Will all girls who are studying in colleges be compared to prostitutes if they don’t agree with Modi ji or BJP? Are all the young in India anti-national? The BJP, PM Modi and Amit Shah must come forward as they owe an explanation to the students of this country,” Surjewala said.
Echoing similar sentiments, Congress leader Manish Tewari lashed out at the government for using the incident as a trigger in order to fulfill the Centre’s intrinsic desire of turning the JNU into a ‘shishu mandir’.
“The JNU incident once again demonstrates the intrinsic fascism of the RSS, BJP and the ABVP. These people feel that the only voice in the public discourse should be their voice. The fundamentalists, who occupy the highest seats in this government, want to use every opportunity available to shut JNU and convert it into a ‘shishu mandir’,” Tewari told ANI.
Meanwhile, Delhi Police Commissioner B.S. Bassi today dispelled rumour that the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has been asked to take over the JNU row probe. Bassi said that his men are competent enough to investigate each and every case which they register.
Bassi, however, said that the Delhi Police is duty bound to inform the NIA.
Reports earlier suggested that the Delhi Police top brass was keen on transferring the case to the Special Cell or the National Investigation Agency since “links between the JNU students and terrorist Afzal Guru” need to be probed.
A status report on the JNU case has already been submitted to Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Delhi Lt Governor Najeeb Jung.
JNU Students Union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on charges of sedition earlier on Friday over a protest organized in the JNU campus on February 9 against the hanging of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. (ANI)