JNU Violence: Delhi Police Identifies Nine Suspects Including Aishe Ghosh

The DCP (Crime Branch) of Delhi Police at a media conference on Friday, identified nine suspects involved in the violent incidents unleashed by masked hooligans on Sunday in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus. They are:

• Chun Chun AISA
• Pankaj Mishra
• Aishe Ghosh
• Vijay Vaskar
• Sucheta Talukdar
• Joginder Bharadwaj
• Vikas Patel
• Priya Ranjan
• Dolan Samantha

Seven of them are said to be associated with four groups aligned to the Left, JNU Students Union (JNUSU), All India Students Association (AISA), Students Federation of India (SFI), Democratic Students Federation (DSF), while two are from Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP).

The DCP- Crime Branch, also shared photographs of the suspects with media persons. However, the police officials said that the photographs have been accessed from viral videos. A lot of misinformation is being spread and hence, police needed to step forward with the progress made in an ongoing investigation, the police officer said.

The DCP Crime Branch also assured media persons that this would be the first of several briefings.

The police officer pointed out that the JNU administration decided to conduct online registration of winter semester from January 1 to January 5 and JNUSU, AISA, SFI and DSF were opposed to the idea. They had been protesting against registration since October.

Moreover, a vast majority of students want to register and continue their education, the DCP said. Those who came forward to register were intimidated and threatened, he added.

Representatives of these same four organisations forced their way into the data centre and switched the off server, according to the police.

The official recounted that JNU administration had lodged a complaint and a case of damage to property was registered. However, the server was restored and on January 4, students of these 4 organisations tried forcing their way again. Some miscreants damaged the server totally in the afternoon and once again, the police registered a case on grounds of damage to public property.

On January 5, at 11:30 am, four students who wanted to register were beaten up by those opposing registration and again at 3 PM students of the same for organisations went to Periyar hostel, indulged in violence and specific rooms were targeted, the DCP said.

The following violence after a peace meeting which was being held near Sabarmati hostel was attacked, there was a lot of violence, he said.

The DCP pointed out that due to violence of January 3 and 4, CCTV footage was inaccessible, and people have been identified on the basis of viral videos by the police.