The Jawaharlal Nehru University Teachers’ Association (JNUTA) on Monday wrote to Delhi Police Commissioner Amulya Patnaik over inaction regarding the January 5 incident where students and teachers of the university were attacked by a masked mob.
Democratic rights
Stating that apart from the initial press conference held by the police, there was no further information on the investigation, the JNUTA wrote: “It appears to be a part of a larger pattern where the police is more proactive in restraining the exercise of democratic rights by citizens in the name of maintaining law and order than it is in protecting these rights from being threatened by lawless mobs. The targeting of teachers is significant because it seriously calls into question the legitimacy of the attempts by the JNU administration to link the mob violence to incidents that took place earlier.”
The JNUTA reiterated that on January 5, several teachers were assaulted and attacked by the mob.
“All of these have been brought to the knowledge of the police in the form of several complaints by teachers,” the letter read.
Stating that a “mood of insecurity continues to prevail at JNU,”it said: “It is up to the Delhi Police to allay these suspicions of JNU’s teachers by taking swift action on the complaints lodged with them, convert them into FIRs and bringing the perpetrators of the mob violence and those who assisted them, to book.”