JNU students to continue protest despite new barrier

The JNU Students Union (JNUSU) on Monday called the university administration's decision to set up grills at the protest site on the campus an attempt to destroy the "culture of JNU".

It said the staging of protests there will not stop.

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) administration erected a grill at one of the portions outside the administration block on Monday, allegedly without informing the students about it.

The space outside the block is known as 'Freedom Square', and is a preferred site for staging protests and sit-ins because of its proximity to the Vice-Chancellor's (VC) office.

"Grilling sit-in site will not stop protests at admin block but this shows JNU VC's idea of university where instead of talking to student he wants to save his face by erecting structures of iron, cement and so on," JNUSU President Mohit Pandey said in a statement.

"On each and every occasion, citing wrong reasons JNU admin tried to stop every protest at admin block on Najeeb's issue. The admin kept on shooting notice after notice on us and threatened us with dire consequences for protesting at admin block," the statement read.

The JNUSU has been staging protests ceaselessly at the university administrative block since the disappearance of student Najeeb Ahmed, who went missing on October 14 after being beaten up a group of students.

The students who beat up Ahmed at his Mahi-Mandavi hostel, were subjected to a proctorial inquiry and were forced to shift to another hostel after the inquiry report came.

However, the students union did not seem impressed with the action taken and has since accused the administration of being biased towards the students involved in the assault.

The union singled out JNU Vice Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar for the decision to make the admin block out of bound for protesting students, and said that "VC and his henchmen grilled the sit-in site secretly".

It added: "This is the classic methodology with which this outsider VC is working on. He does not talk to students' union, he does not listen to students, but tries to destroy the culture of JNU by his might."

--IANS

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