: The February 9 event that turned into a huge controversy that led to the arrest of three JNU students on charges of sedition was actually organised without “proper permission”, the inquiry committee has found out.
According to the high level enquiry committee, the organisers not only circumvented the laid down provision of seeking approval for organising an event on the university campus, they ignored the communication from the security staff that permission granted to the event was withdrawn.
While the organisers had initially sought permission to hold a poetry reading session, it was only after some posters had been put up on the campus that the authorities came to know that the event was being organised against the “judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhat”.
Also, says the report, the permission form was never taken to Rector's office, who was the approving authority, and hence the permission for the event on February 9 was never sought or granted. The chief security officer ddi not receive any official intimation about holding of the event, the committee report observes.
When the JNU administration found out that the event being organised was not going to be the same for which the permission form was signed by additional dean of students, it asked the operation manager of Group 4, the private security group responsible for security inside the JNU campus, to convey to the organisers that the permission had been cancelled. “... Mr Syed Umar Khalid told Mr Amarjeet Kumar that they will go ahead with the programme at Sabarmati dhaba and the security can do whatever it wants,” the report read. Mr Kumar of group 4 was directed by operations manager to convey the message to Khalid that the permission had been withdrawn by the VC's office.
“The organisers disobeyed the instructions from the administration about not holding the event,” the committee observed.
It also noted that had the event further escalated it would have led to law and order disturbance.
The committee report is based on a document trail and depositions of the eyewitnesses. None of the students have so far deposed in front of the committee.
