Police had stormed the Jamia campus following violence in the area
The Delhi Police Crime Branch Thursday told the Delhi High Court that the violence during the anti-CAA protest near Jamia Millia Islamia last December was “not sporadic” but a “well planned incident”, as “rioters” were “armed with stones, lathis, petrol bombs, etc, which clearly manifests that the intention of the mob was to disrupt law and order in the area”.
Police, in its preliminary affidavit filed through advocates Amit Mahajan and Rajat Nair, said that in the “… garb of student agitation, what happened appears to be a well-planned and orchestrated attempt by some persons, with local support (who were not students), to intentionally perpetrate violence in the area”.
It claimed that it was “only due to unavoidable circumstances, as contemporaneously captured in electronic evidence gathered by respondent (Delhi Police), that it became imperative for it to enter the university which was being used as a shield by rioters to pelt stones and other lethal objects on the police force”.
The response was filed in a PIL by advocate Nabila Hasan and other related petitions with regard to the incidents of December 13 and 15 in the area around the university.
The December 15 protests had spiralled into violence after a section of protesters, including Jamia students and local residents, tried to march to Parliament but were stopped by police at Mathura Road. As a section of protesters started pelting stones and set buses and private vehicles on fire, police retaliated with lathi-charge and eventually stormed the campus. Several students sustained injuries.
The other petitioners include lawyers, Jamia students, residents of Okhla and the Imam of Jama Masjid mosque opposite Parliament House, who have sought action, including medical treatment and compensation for students and registration of FIRs against erring police officers.
The affidavit said, “The fact that 65 police personnel sustained injuries would show extent of violence, which could be successfully contained in the end. All 189 individuals (which include students) were taken to the hospital, from where most of them left after some time after taking necessary treatment. Out of the persons temporarily apprehended for the purpose of verification, those who were students were handed over by the police authorities to the proctor (university), who was called by the police, who identified the students and accepted in writing of having received them. No student was ever arrested or detained either in the police lock up or otherwise at that time, nor any student is arrested or detained till date.”