Two days after the Delhi Police issued a lookout notice for five absconding students, who have been named in a sedition case for allegedly shouting anti-national slogans in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the students returned to the campus on Sunday evening.
According to sources in the university, the students — Umar Khalid, Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar, Anant Prakash and Anirban Bhattacharya — came back with the intention to surrender before the police.
Immediately upon getting the news on the five students, a police team was sent to the campus to get an official confirmation about the developments from the university authorities. Sources said the five students will be arrested soon.
'Fear mob lynching, not police'
The five students said they went into hiding fearing mob lynching and not the Delhi Police.
“We were laying low and did not come to public life because we feared mob lynching and not police,” Rama Naga, general secretary of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU), said.
Earlier, Khalid, addressing students in front of the admin bloc of the JNU, said he was “not a terrorist”, adding the BJP government “needed an excuse to target the campus”.
Cops go after scribes
The police seemed to have shifted focus on to journalists who had reported the incident at the university. Throughout Sunday, police teams went about calling journalists or going to their residence to question them. Most of these journalists, which include women, report on education or crime and have been covering the episode.
Police obtained a list of these journalists after examining call records of Umar Khalid and the others. According to police sources, the South district’s Special Task Force (STF) are trying to contact the journalists. >More...
(With inputs from agencies)
