JNU row: Umar Khalid resurfaces on campus, says 'I am not a terrorist'

Addressing the students on campus after his return, Khalid also said that the BJP govt needed an excuse to target the campus

Umar Khalid, one of the six students accused of raising anti-national slogans at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on February 9, late on Sunday said he was "not a terrorist", adding the BJP government "needed an excuse to target the campus".

"My name is Umar Khalid and I'm not a terrorist," Khalid, who fled the campus after the matter became serious, said as he condemned the media trial that branded him a terrorist. "The attack (on the university) is not because of the program which was organised on Feburary 9, but because the government needs an excuse to attack us," Khalid said, addressing students in front of the admin bloc at the campus. Khalid, along with four other accused, Anant Prakash Narayan, Ashutosh Kumar, Rama Naga and Anirban Bhattacharya, returned back to the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus late on Sunday.

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"The media, all this while, presented a lot of things about me. The media trial, this propaganda... I know what my family is going through," he said.

He also refuted the media reports that he made 800 calls to the 'Gulf or Kashmir' a few days before the program was organised.

JNU has been on the boil over the arrest of its students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges after some students organised a meet to mark the anniversaries of executions of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front co-founder Maqbool Bhat. Anti-India slogans were raised at the gathering.