New Delhi: New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University became the centrestage for national politics as the ongoing row over anti-India sloganeering by a group of students escalated Sunday, setting off a massive political storm after Union home minister Rajnath Singh claimed the event at the JNU campus to commemorate the third death anniversary of Afzal Guru had the support of Lashkar-e-Tayyaba patron and 26/11 mastermind Hafiz Saeed.
“The incident (Afzal event) at JNU has received support from Hafiz Saeed. This is a truth that the nation needs to understand... What happened is very unfortunate,” Mr Singh said referring to the event at the JNU campus last week.
The Congress and Left parties, along with other non-BJP parties like the NCP, pounced on the Modi government demanding that the home minister corroborate his statement with proof as it had “serious implications”.
National Conference leader Omar Abdullah said it was a “very serious charge” to level against the students, while CPM general secretary Sitaram Yechury and CPI national secretary D. Raja demanded that the evidence be made public.
The RSS too jumped into the fray, making a veiled attack on the Congress and the Left over their stand, saying that some political leaders were “condoning anti-national acts instead of demanding action against them”.
Cautioning his fellow politicians and intellectuals, minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju asserted that “freedom of expression is not absolute and unqualified” and that it “can’t be at the expense of the national interest”.
MHA tries to cover up for mistake
After it turned out that the Twitter handle was reportedly fake, the MHA tried to distance itself from the tweet, saying: “Statement of the home minister is based on the inputs available from different agencies.” MHA sources said the intelligence agencies had warned that LeT wanted to “stoke unrest” and fish in troubled waters amid the students’ protests at JNU. The security agencies are now probing whether the Twitter handle was created by the LeT founder, and if not, who were the elements behind it.
This is the first time any event at the institution is being linked to terror from Pakistan. JNU teachers rallied behind the students and questioned the university’s decision to allow the police crackdown while they appealed to the public not to “brand” the institution as “anti-national”.
