Monitor News Bureau
Srinagar, Jan 14: Delhi Police on Monday filed a 1200-page chargesheet against former JNU Students Union (JNUSU) President Kanhaiya Kumar and nine others in a sedition case after some students shouted “anti-national slogans” in February 2016.
The chargesheet, as per media reports, was filed before Metropolitan Magistrate Sumeet Anand and also names former student activists Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya.“The others charged in the case are Kashmiri students Aquib Hussain, Mujeeb Hussain, Muneeb Hussain, Umar Gul, Rayeea Rassol, Bashir Bhat and Basharat,” said the report.
As many as 36 others, including Communist Party of India (CPI) leader D Raja’s daughter Aprajita, Shehla Rashid (then vice-president of the JNUSU), Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Banojyotsna Lahiri have been named in column 12 of the charge sheet due to insufficient evidence against them, reports quoted police sources as having said.
The report said that the charges slapped under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) deal with sedition, voluntarily causing hurt, forgery, using as genuine a forged document, punishment for unlawful assembly, unlawful assembly with a common object, rioting and criminal conspiracy.
“The matter has been listed for further hearing on Wednesday,” news agency IANS reported.
Meanwhile, Kanhaiya and others named in a charge sheet, termed the move as “politically motivated” and questioned its timing, ahead of the parliamentary election.”The charge sheet is politically motivated. However, we want the charges to be framed and a speedy trial in the case so that the truth comes out. We also want to see the videos that have been placed on record as evidence by the police,” Kumar told PTI.
The Delhi Police also charged former students — Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya — for allegedly shouting anti-India slogans during an event organised on Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus on February 9, 2016 to commemorate the hanging of Parliament-attack mastermind Afzal Guru.
Khalid, who addressed a student gathering at St. Joseph’s College in Bangalore on the “role of youth in safeguarding the Constitution”, said, “We reject the allegations. The move to file the charge sheet three years after the alleged incident is an attempt to divert the attention (of the people) right before (parliamentary) elections. We will fight it out in court.”
