CPI-ML condemns JNUSU president arrest

The Communist Party of India-Marxist Leninist (CPI-ML) on Saturday condemned the arest of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) president Kanhaiya Kumar in a sedition case.

"This crackdown is nothing but a pre-planned war by the Modi government against campus democracy and the student movement," CPI-ML general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya said in a press statement.

"Just as Rohith Vemula was branded anti-national and subjected to a witchhunt, JNU student activists are today being subjected to the same political witchhunt," he added.

He said that campuses like JNU are being targeted for raising voices of dissent against the government and the Sangh Parivar.

Bhattacharya said that the JNUSU leaders and leaders of Left student organisations have categorically condemned certain divisive and provocative slogans that were raised on the campus, and had acted promptly to stop such sloganeering.

It is widely known that left student organisations have never supported divisive slogans or ideas, and have always worked for people's unity, he added.

A meeting was organised on Tuesday on the JNU campus where a group of students mourned the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF) co-founder Maqbool Bhat and shouted anti-India slogans.

Delhi police registered a sedition case on Thursday and arrested Kanhaiya Kumar. He was later remanded to three-days police custody on Friday.