Former JNU office bearers questioned in cases from 2018

Office bearers from 2017-18 have been called for questioning in connection with two incidents from 2018 — when protests against compulsory attendance had resulted in two Rectors being confined to the administrative block overnight after students gheraoed the building, and when ABVP and JNUSU had clashed post the screening of a movie on ‘love jihad’, with the former lodging an FIR against the latter.

DCP (Southwest) Gaurav Sharma confirmed that the office bearers had been summoned for questioning.

While Geeta Kumari and Simone Zoya Khan belonged to the All India Students’ Association, Duggirala Srikrishna was from the Students’ Federation of India and Shubhanshu Singh from the Democratic Students’ Federation.

Former JNUSU vice-president Simone Zoya Khan said she had been called on two separate occasions in February, once for each incident. “It has been in the very preliminary stages so not much has happened so far. They just asked a couple of questions related to the incident and asked me to sign a document. These are all old cases that happened during our tenure that they have opened now,” she said.

Former JNUSU president Geeta Kumari also said she had been asked to sign a document. “These incidents are so far in the past that it’s very difficult for us to recollect all the details now. It’s been over three years. Moreover, even the officers’ investigations seem to be new. They don’t seem to know the political context of JNU, or which cases are politically motivated. This just seems like a tool for harassment,” she said.

Shubhanshu Singh, former JNUSU joint secretary, said he had only been summoned once in the matter of the gherao of rectors and had been asked to sign a ‘bound down’ notice. “Some basic questions were asked about our whereabouts on that day, etc. I even asked them why they were asking about a 2018 incident now, to which they said that they had more important cases pending, and so finishing those took time,” he said.