JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, who surrendered before the police on Tuesday night, were arrested on Wednesday after being questioned for five hours.
“Before being arrested they were questioned for at least five hours in which the police enquired about their whereabouts and hideouts during the phase when police was looking out for them in connection with the sedition case which led to arrest of JNU student union president Kanhaiya Kumar,” a senior police official said according to Hindustan Times.
The police also enquired whether two of them were the main organisers of the February 9 event against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, and whether they were involved in anti-India sloganeering which allegedly took place.
The police official, added, that the force is waiting for three more students to surrender.
The duo, who returned to the JNU campus last Sunday after having gone missing since February 12, drove from the administrative block to the main gate of the university, got into a Delhi Police vehicle and were taken to an undisclosed destination last night.
Besides Kumar, Khalid and Bhattacharya, the other students are Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Anant Prakash.
Delhi Police had issued a look-out notice on February 20 against Khalid, Bhattacharya, Naga, Ashutosh and Prakash.
Meanwhile according to The Hindu, sources in Congress said that some senior leaders had “briefed” the party president Sonia Gandhi about the possibility of facing a blowback if they put the spotlight on the JNU row in the Parliament..
Brushing aside the apprehensions of some senior party leaders on debating the question of nationalism in Parliament, Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi is adamant on challenging the BJP government over the ongoing unrest at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), a controversy that pitted left-leaning and centrist political forces against the rightwing formations.
Apart from expressing his concern over the rising interference of the rightwing ideology as espoused by RSS in the country’s higher education sector, Mr.Gandhi made a strong case before the Congress Working Committee members on Monday that the party should defend the “integrity” of JNU by standing up for the students who have been facing the charges of sedition.
Senior Congress leader and deputy leader of the Opposition at Rajya Sabha, Anand Sharma, told The Hindu that the entire Congress leadership is confident about its stand on the JNU crisis.
Mr.Sharma said the “doctored videos as alleged” that show the JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar chanting anti-national slogans “exposes” the BJP government.
“The proof against Kanhaiya is not coming out,” said Mr.Sharma. “The government is busy spreading misinformation and character assassination…how can they get away from that?”
