Combing campus for Najeeb an absurd exercise, says JNUSU

Terming the Delhi Police the puppet of the central government, the JNU Students Union (JNUSU) on Monday denounced the campus search operation undertaken by it to find missing student Najeeb Ahmed, as absurd, and their methodology as clueless.

"After 65 days of Najeeb's disappearance, this is the state of affairs. In an utter sense of mockery of justice earlier, the police worked like a puppet of the government and now to save their face in front of the court, they are doing absurd exercises with clueless methodology," JNUSU President Mohit Pandey said in a statement.

Police on Monday morning, with a strength of 600-700, embarked upon a comprehensive search operation inside the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus, including the combing of a sprawling Sanjay Van, which comes under southern-central ridge, spreading over 626 hectares.

This search operation has come following a rap by the Delhi High Court delivered to police for latter's failure to trace Ahmed, an M.Sc. student at the university.

The court on December 14, hearing a habeas corpus plea filed by Ahmed's mother, had directed the Delhi Police to conduct a thorough search of the JNU Campus, including its class-rooms, rooms in hostels etc.

"Now after court's order, to pay lip service, Delhi Police appears to have come out of their slumber. But this also shows that they never had any seriousness in Najeeb's case," Pandey said.

He also discredited the whole seach operation as futile for having come after so many days, and said that in all likelihoodm many important details must have been lost due to the time gap.

Qasim, Ahmed's room-mate at Mahi-Mandavi hostel inside the campus, also appeared unenthused about the prospects of police finding anything of consequence after two months.

"What's the point of sniffer dogs? They would be just as clueless and useless as the police, for it's very unlikely for them after 65 days to pick any scent which might lead to some clue," Qasim told IANS.

"We had demanded a room-to-room search and the combing of the forest the very day we picketed outside the Vasant Kunj Police Station (October 26), but the police is waking up only now," he added.

Ahmed, 27, was beaten up by a mob of students, who had gone to his room to canvas for the mess-elections, on the night of October 14. He then went missing mysteriously on the intervening night of October 14-15 leaving his belongings including phone behind, and police is still clueless about his whereabouts.

From among the students who had beaten up Ahmed, at least four were served a notice by the university after a Proctorial inquiry had found them guilty, and were asked to change their hostels.

--IANS

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