JNU row: Yechury dubs govt. move as 'undeclared Emergency'

Communist Party of India (Marxist) politburo member Sitaram Yechury on Friday alleged the BJP-led NDA Government's action against the students of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) reminds him of an 'undeclared Emergency' in the country.

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"What is happening in JNU? Police on campus, arrests and picking up students from hostels. This had last happened during Emergency," Yechury said in a tweet.

The JNU Students' Union also lashed out at the Centre for ordering the arrest of its president Kanhaiya Kumar.

The students' faction accused the government of deliberately targeting ideological opponents. They have also accused the government of attempting to push the leftist students to take the extreme step, similar to the one taken by Hyderabad University's scholar Rohith Vemula.

"Police are doing rounds of the campus and mindlessly witch-hunting activists. They want to witch-hunt and target us, like they targeted Rohith Vemula. They want us to hang ourselves like Rohith did. But we want to remind them, every dead Rohith will further intensify the students' movement and people's unity," said JNU Students' Union vice-president Shehla Rashid Shora.

Shora claimed that the JNU Students' Union was not responsible for organizing the anti-India protests.

"We stopped these slogans that called for India's division and destruction because we don't believe in politics of division," he added.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh has demanded strict action against the students involved in the commemoration event of 2001 Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.