New Delhi: Arrested JNU Students’ Union president Kanhaiya Kumar told a Supreme Court-appointed lawyers’ probe panel that he was thrashed — kicked and punched and pushed to the ground — and injured by men dressed as lawyers when he was brought to the Patiala House courts complex on February 17 and the Delhi police did not do anything, claims which could land cops into more trouble. Delhi police commissioner Bhim Sain Bassi said the case has been transferred to the special cell from the South District police.
Police tried to save me from mob, says Kanhaiya
In a parallel development, Ashutosh, the fourth of the five students the police had been seeking, joined the investigation after he was summoned. He was questioned at the R.K. Puram police station till late into Saturday evening.
The police custody of Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, meanwhile, was extended by two more days by a city court.
Kanhaiya Kumar, while narrating the sequence of events to the lawyers’ panel in a video, said: “When the police brought me inside the court’s gate, a mob of men in lawyers’ robes attacked me. It appeared as if they were ready to attack and they were calling others also. I was assaulted,” adding, “The police escorting me tried to save me but the police officials were also beaten up.”
The panel of six advocates — Kapil Sibal, Rajeev Dhavan, Dushyant Dave, A.D.N. Rao, Ajit Kumar Sinha and Haren Raval, had visited the Patiala House courts on February 17 after the apex court was informed that Mr Kanhaiya Kumar was beaten up when being produced before the magistrate.
After Mr Kumar narrated the incident to the panel, Mr Sibal called New Delhi district DCP Jatin Narwal and asked him about it. “How did you allow the attack to take place inside the court premises? Your men were there. What were they doing? How was he (the man who attacked Kanhaiya outside the gate of the courtroom) allowed to come inside,” the panel members asked the DCP.
Responding, Mr Narwal said: “He came with the escort party and entered the room adjacent to the courtroom.” The panel members then called other police officials — the SHOs of Tilak Marg, Vasant Kunj (North) and Sarojini Nagar police stations — and asked them about the incident, and they replied that the person who had attacked Mr Kumar had claimed that he was his lawyer.
