The Delhi Police worked at lightening speed to charge and arrest three Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students for sedition, but a year later the urgency has seemingly vanished as far as completion of the investigation is concerned
A year on, the chargesheet has yet to be filed as the out-on-bail accused — Kanhaiya Kumar, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya — are left to deal with the blemish on their career. There is no clear word on when the cops plan to file it.
“The chargesheet is yet to be filed and all the nuances of the case are legally and professionally being examined and we are scrutinising the case papers now,” said Delhi Police Spokesperson Dependra Pathak on Wednesday, when asked about the progress.
A police officer claimed that they are firm on filing a chargesheet instead of a closure report in the matter.
“Final stage with evidence ready,” is how a senior police officer summed up a rather brief reply when asked about the status of the investigations. Sources further added that it could at least take another couple of months, but did not rule out further delay.
They also stayed tight-lipped on the list of witnesses and whether names of more accused have been or will be added to the case. This includes a group of Kashmiri students who allegedly raised the slogans that the three arrested men have denied raising. The statement of nearly 30 people, who were purportedly seen in the video captured by a TV channel, has also been recorded.
In the past one year, some of the students, whose names also figured in adverse reports submitted by the university, were questioned but none were arrested.
A police officer said that while the submissions of university reports were important to the investigations, everything that may be administratively wrong may not be criminally wrong.
While they claim that they are on firm ground regarding progress in the case, the police choose not to get into the reasons behind the delay.
In an interview with The Hindu , Kanhaiya said that the slow pace was mainly because the police had no case to begin with.
The fact also remains that since Kanhaiya, along with Khalid and Anirban, were arrested on sedition charges — after allegations of ‘anti-national’ sloganeering against him surfaced in February last year — they have not been questioned again.
Officers denied that filing a closure report was on the cards, but acknowledged that the outrage which followed the arrests have also made them wary and hinted that the delaying tactics was something which suited them.
The Delhi Police’s submission in the court that the three students had not misused their bail terms while out on conditional interim bail, helped the trio get regular bails.
