JNU row: Protestors raise slogans demanding varsity shutdown

New Delhi - The protestors assembled at the university gate where a tight security cordon and barricading was put in place. Police and paramilitary forces were deputed to prevent outsiders from entering the campus.

Protests continued inside and outside the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus in New Delhi on Tuesday, with scores of people shouting slogans against the university and demanding its closure.
The protestors assembled at the university gate where a tight security cordon and barricading was put in place. Police and paramilitary forces were deputed to prevent outsiders from entering the campus.
The demonstrators demanded the shutdown of what they said was the "anti-national" administration of the varsity.
Carrying saffron flags and shouting slogans like shut down JNU administration.
The protestors said those who raised anti-India slogans at an event organised on February 9 to commemorate the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru should be arrested.
"Arrest those ant-national elements," shouted one of the protestors as he tried to break through a barricade at the university entrance.
"Our protest is in favour of the nation," he added.
Students in the campus meanwhile continued to be on an indefinite strike till JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested following a raid on the campus on February 12, is released.
The teachers on Tuesday also questioned why Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar gave the police permission to raid the campus, and said that it should be reversed.
"Your letter to the Delhi Police granting them unprecedented rights to conduct indiscriminate search and arrest of our wards is highly objectionable," JNUTA said in a letter to the vice chancellor.
"We urge you to kindly issue a letter clearly withdrawing this formal permission to the police and re-establish the credibility of our administration in the eyes of our community."
"Subversion of our own institutional mechanism for enquiries, based on the statutes of our university duly established by an Act of parliament, raises a number of questions about the legitimacy of the decision," the statement added.
The controversy in JNU erupted after some JNU students organised a meet to mourn the hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Jammu Kashmir Liberation Front co-founder Maqbool Bhat. Anti-India slogans were allegedly raised at the meeting.
The organisers, however, denied that the students raised any anti-national slogans.
As per reports, a letter dated February 11 was sent by the university registrar to the police saying that the "VC grants to the police force permission to enter JNU campus if need be and as you may deem fit".
The vice chancellor on Monday had said police were not called in by the university.
"We did not call police. Police sent us a letter saying that an FIR had been lodged against some unnamed people on sedition charges and that they wanted our cooperation in investigating the incident. We only allowed them to enter as per the law to perform their duties," Jagadesh Kumar had told IANS on Monday.

• India