New Delhi: On the wee hours of February 13, 14 students who were protesting inside gate seven of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) in Delhi were woken up while they were sleeping in front of the central canteen and forcibly carried by security guards of the institute under the guidance of the chief security officer of the university Syed Abdul Rasheed.
They were then handed over to the Delhi Police who were inside the campus near another gate. Later, the students were detained at different stations in Delhi for almost 12 hours without being informed of any grounds for detention and access to lawyers.
These 14 students were part of a sit-in protest which commenced on February 10 in front of the central canteen in the university. They were demanding the revoking of the disciplinary action against four students – Saurabh, Jyoti, Fuzail Shabbar and Niranjan – who were targeted for organising an event, remembrance day, on December 16 to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the police crackdown on the university campus during the protests against Citizenship (Amendment) Act-National Register of Citizens (CAA-NRC) on December 15, 2019.
“The guards came from three sides. While I was sleeping, I was picked up by my hair. I woke up to the male guards pulling my leg, they did not allow us to even wear our slippers. I was carried by a male and a female guard, my body exposed. I was screaming and asking them to at least let me fix my clothes. The more I was resisting, the more aggressive they became,” said U.R. Uthara, first year MA Sociology student who was among the 14 students who were detained by the police and later suspended from the university.
The events that led to the protest
The students sought permission from the proctor’s office to organise an event to mark the remembrance day on December 15. However, they were denied permission.
They organised the event the next day (December 16) after the classes at 5.30 pm, it started with a march, which commenced and ended at the central canteen. Next, students gave speeches highlighting the police brutality that happened in 2019 and threw light on the ongoing fascist attack on educational institutions. The event lasted for about an hour.
On December 17, one of the organisers of the event, Saurabh, a PhD scholar in the Department of Hindi and a member of All India Students Association (AISA) received a show cause notice from the proctor’s office, in which it was stated that the event had a “malafide political agenda” and it “paralyses academic spaces”.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.
