Countrywide campus protests on Nov 15 for missing JNU student

The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) on Friday called upon major student organisations across the country to hold campus protests on November 14-15 and to intensify the fight for Najeeb Ahmed, student of the Jawaharlal Nehru University missing from campus here for last 26 days.

At a conference organised on the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus by the students union denounced the varsity's inaction and "total abdication" in its duty to bring the culprits to justice, and deliberated the ways in which the protest movement could be intensified.

The JNU students have been staging protests since Ahmed went missing after an alleged brawl with a few activists of the RSS's students organisation Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) at the campus hostel on the night of October 14-15.

"We have organised the national leaders' meet as a step towards intensification of our movement to fight for Najeeb. We have decided upon reaching out to campuses countrywide and tomorrow we will be burning effigies of the Home Minister and Vice-Chancellor (VC) in the campus," Rama Naga, former JNUSU General Secretary, told IANS.

The agitation is likely to spread to Hyderabad Central University (HCU), Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), and campuses in other states.

The leaders spoke about the impunity with which ABVP students, who reportedly assaulted Ahmed, have been shielded from any inquiry and meaningful interrogation by both the Delhi Police and JNU authorities. They also spoke about ABVP's increasing hooliganism on the campus and the accused it of enjoying patronage of the central government.

"The government of the day has waged a war on campuses and on all marginalised sections and dissenting voices across the country. Yesterday it was Rohith Vemula pushed to suicide, then it was JNU students charged with sedition and jailed, today it is Najeeb," a statement released by the JNUSU on Friday said.

The meet was attended by many student parties such as far-Left All India Students Association (AISA), the CPI-M affiliated Students Federation of India (SFI), the CPI's All India Students Federation (AISF), and the Congress backed National Students Union of India (NSUI), among others.

--IANS

vn/sm/vt