Hyderabad: Jawaharlal Nehru University students are planning to meet President Pranab Mukherjee and Union home minister Rajnath Singh to seek justice and to discuss the political issues that they have been highlighting.
JNU Students’ Union vice-president Ms Shehla Rashid Shora told the media here on Sunday that they were planning a nation-wide protest on March 15 with students from other universities, demanding the Rohith Act and release of JNU students Umer Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, and DU professor S.A.R. Geelani, who were arrested on charges of sedition.
The students will also demand repeal of the sedition law. JNUSU students said the countrywide protests would continue till their demands were met.
The JNU students said that there are striking similarities between the incidents at UoH and JNU, which were fuelled by the unnecessary intervention of BJP-RSS leaders.
Just like Union minister Bandaru Dattatreya intervened and got Dalit students suspended at UoH, BJP legislator Mahesh Giri intervened in the JNU matter and filed an FIR against JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar and others instead of leaving the matter to the administration.
Talking about the Afzal Guru-related event, Ms Rashid said questioning the death penalty was not ‘supporting Afzal Guru’.
“A Delhi University study said death penalty in India has been used to selectively target minorities, adivasis and Dalits. Prominent people including Markandeya Katju and others have spoken against the death penalty of Guru. BJP’s ally, PDP is also against it. We are against death penalty for anybody, be it Guru or the people who killed Rajiv Gandhi," she said.
Asked about Union minister M. Venkaiah Naidu’s comment on JNU students and politics. Ms Rashid asked why the minister wanted students to quit studies to join politics.
"Does he want future politicians to be uneducated, illiterate?” She spoke at University of Hyderabad, where the Rohith Vemula suicide had sparked protests.
