JNU row: Indian academia suffering at hands of Centre, says Congress

Asserting that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Government is hell bent upon digging its own grave to change the fundamental narrative of this country, the Congress on Tuesday said the Indian academia is suffering at the hands of the Centre.

"It's very unfortunate that the people, who have not seen the inside of a college, are now ministers looking after universities. The other tragedy is I pity the Indian academia... when they are asked to bent, they are actually crawling on both hands and knees," Congress leader Manish Tewari told ANI.

"What is happening in the Jawaharlal Nehru University or the FTII in Pune is absolutely abominable and shocking. You are rusticating students even when the authenticity of the video has not been established. You are chargesheeting students in FTII. This government is hell bent upon digging its own grave, happily so in its attempt to change the fundamental narrative of this country," he added.

The Deans of five schools of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) yesterday wrote a letter to Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar, saying that contrary to the message being conveyed that Deans were apprised of the High Level Enquiry Committee report of the Afzal Guru row, they had not been given any details of the charges made against students or the degree of punishment.

The Deans have asked the Vice-Chancellor to issue a clarification in this regard to say that the Deans Committee was not informed of who all are being charged, what the charges are and what the recommended punishment in each case is.

A high-level committee appointed by the university to probe the event organised to protest the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) leader Maqbool Bhat, besides other related issues is believed to have recommended expulsion of JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar, PhD scholars Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya and two others.

Based on the findings of the panel, the university has issued show cause notices to 21 students, including Kanhaiya, who is out on bail, as well as Umar and Anirban, currently in judicial custody on sedition charges.

The committee was formed on February 10 to probe the controversial event during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.