Jawaharlal Nehru University Vice-Chancellor M. Jagadesh Kumar had to take to Twitter on Sunday evening to pacify agitated students protesting outside his residence. “Tracing Najeeb is the job of the Police. I will meet Police Commissioner tomorrow. Please stop this and come forward to find Najeeb,” the V-C tweeted.
A large number of students led by JNUSU formed a human chain from the Administration Block to the Vice-Chancellor’s residence and then started protesting to put pressure on him to take more proactive measures to find Najeeb Ahmed who has been missing since October 15. The V-C appealed to the students to call off their agitation and said by shouting slogans and blocking the entrance to his residence, Najeeb cannot be traced.
Students, however, maintained that they were not confining the V-C to his residence but were appealing to him to come out and speak to them. The students dispersed after carrying out their protest for over an hour.
The students had on October 19-20 blocked the university Administration Block for 24 hours keeping the V-C and other officials under “illegal confinement”.
On Sunday morning, the university made an urgent appeal to student organisations to refrain from wrongful and unlawful protest methods. “The ethos, norms and peaceful methods of resolving issues within the university are at stake because of reported attempts by some vested interests to give it a communal colour. The entire community must unite against politicisation of the issue,” the university appealed.
The university also said it was high time that the JNUSU provided helpful leadership to trace Najeeb instead of resorting to unlawful methods of protest.
‘Bring Back Najeeb’, a campaign started for the cause, is organisting a Citizen's March from Mandi House to Jantar Mantar on Monday afternoon.
The JNUSU said that it had received an assurance from the Director of Home Affairs Rakesh Mittal that strict instructions would be given to the Delhi Police to intensify and expedite the search operations and that a communication channel will be set up to provide all updates regarding Najeeb’s case on a day-to-day basis.
Students also communicated their dissatisfaction with the police as the posters for finding Najeeb have not been pasted all over the city.
