NHRC team visits Jamia univ to record statements of students; to further probe incident till Jan17

After deciding to further probe till January 17 the incident of violence at Jamia Millia Islamia in December last year, a team from the National Human Rights Commission on Tuesday visited the university campus and recorded statements of the students who were injured in the incident, sources said.

The NHRC had last month sent a fact-finding team to investigate whether there were any violations of human rights during the police crackdown at the varsity premises on December 15.

"After conducting an on-spot inquiry earlier, NHRC has decided to further probe the Jamia university incident. The rights panel team will conduct this investigation from January 14-17," a source in the NHRC said.

On Tuesday, around 35-40 students were present to record their statements with a NHRC team, led by SSP Manzil Saini, to conduct an inquiry to know whether there were any violations of human rights during the incident, varsity officials said.

According to the NHRC, it had received complaints in December alleging illegal detention of students by police and denial of legal and medical access to injured students at the police station, following which it had registered a case and deputed a probe team.

The four-member team of the human rights body headed by a DSP visited the varsity and recorded the statements of students who were either injured or witnessed the alleged police brutality inside the varsity library on December 15, said university spokesperson Ahmad Azeem.

A total of 25 students out of 40 present gave their version in writing to the NHRC team. Before that the team interacted with all the students who narrated stories of last month's "police action", he said.

The team will visit the campus again on Wednesday and also on January 16 and 17 for recording statements of the remaining students, employees and security personnel of the university, he said.