People in power breeding atmosphere of hatred

New Delhi: A day after he was attacked by an unidentified assailant here, JNU student leader Umar Khalid on Tuesday alleged the real culprits were people breeding an "atmosphere of hatred, bloodlust and fear" from their seats of power and those providing a complete impunity for "assassins and mob lynchers".

On a day when the Delhi Police handed over the case to its special cell, which incidentally is already probing an old sedition case against him and two other students, Khalid also referred to the 'Tukde Tukde' hashtag being prefixed to his name when it was the BJP leaders who "openly support those who say they will do "tukde tukde" of the country (break the country into pieces) if a certain movie is released".

Khalid, who has often been target of the right-wing trolls on social media platforms with allegations of being anti-national ever since some anti-India slogans were allegedly chanted at an event in JNU, also alleged that he has been a victim of a media trial for the last two years without any evidence or charge- sheet.

While the attack, which took place in the national capital's high security zone outside the Constitution Club at a short distance away from Parliament and just two days before Independence Day, has already raised questions about security cover of the city, Khalid launched a no-holds-barred attack on the government in a Facebook post and said he always got a "callous response" whenever he sought security from Delhi Police in the last two years.

In the post, he also tagged a picture in which he is seen with journalist Gauri Lankesh, who was shot dead last September in Bengaluru.

"With the repeated death threats against my life and having seen the assassinations of one activist after the other in the last few years, I somehow knew that someday a gun may be turned against me too," he wrote.