At least 20 students from the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) on Wednesday alleged that they were brutally beaten up by security personnel, stomped on, and harassed with communal slurs during an attempt to march to Parliament from Jamia Millia Islamia on Monday to protest against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Denying the charges, DCP (South-East) R.P. Meena said: “All allegations levelled against us are untrue. The entire protest has been videographed by us. In fact, some of our men were manhandled and they received injuries during the scuffle. No force was used against the protesters.”
Recalling the day’s events, the students said that during the rally, as hundreds of protesters started to march, authorities deployed multiple lines of security personnel near Holy Family Hospital. Barricading had also been set up, they added.
“The students had not seen the barricades behind the scores of police and paramilitary personnel, and initially thought that they would be allowed through. But when we started moving forward, the police force showed their true colours. Since there were many media personnel around, the police used a new strategy. They hit us with their boots, with their knees, and the hooks of their batons” a student, who was injured in the protest, said.
A resident of Jamia Nagar who took part in the rally said that when she climbed on to a barricade to help her friends, “a male police officer pulled my hair”. She also alleged that women police officers pushed her off the barricade. “I fell on the feet of a few policemen, whom I even identified later. They hit me. They kicked me multiple times, which led to a hairline fracture on my third rib,” she added.
The protester was later admitted to ICU at Al Shahfa for a day.
Other protesters also complained of being beaten up by the security personnel and being harassed with communal slurs. “They were targeting us,” said another woman protester.
Abu Darbha said his clothes were torn and security personnel kicked him in the face, dragged him across a barricade and even hit him using a grenade launcher while hurling abuses at him.
Protesters said that up to 60 people were injured in the incident. Twelve students were reportedly admitted in the ICU, Jamia panel members added.
The protesters on Wednesday said they had tried several times to get police permission for the march. They even tried reaching out to several top officials but were denied.
They claimed that they were being targeted by the police, with individual students being “isolated” and threatened.
The JCC also appealed to the police to grant them permission to take out a march from the campus to a destination of their choice at least once in the next 15 days.
With PTI inputs
