Yet another protest by hundreds of Jamia Millia Islamia students and local residents turned ugly on Monday evening with reports emanating of several students being badly mauled in a scuffle with the men in uniform.
Even more shocking were allegations in News 18 and India Today.com which quoted several students, some of them women, as claiming that they were ‘‘hit in their private parts’’.
(FPJ is not running the quotes as these claims need to be corroborated).
However, a Delhi Police official said that no protesters were lathi-charged. This was at variance with the account of a student who said that only those near barricades were forcefully stopped, pushed and punched (News 18).
One of them is said to be in ICU for chest and stomach injury and respiratory problems, but is stated to be stable, the TV channel’s news portal said. Most of the others came in a semi-conscious state.
Sources told FPJ that 18 students were admitted at the Al-Shifa hospital, Okhla, after they were brutally hit by the police during the protest. “Nine out of 18 students are serious as they have sustained severe injuries on their ‘vulnerable’ parts. The treatment is underway and we are monitoring the students,” said a doctor at the hospital.
The trouble erupted after the police denied the students the request to proceed to Parliament, which is currently in session; howling and protesting, they clambered over barricades before finally digging in their heels and sitting on 'dharna' outside the university.
These visibly shaken students were initially taken to the Jamia Health Centre and later shifted to Al-Shifa.
Around 2,000 police personnel were stationed with over 800 barricades to thwart the 1,200 students, Saiful Islam, a student of the law faculty of Jamia Millia Islamia University who was part of the protest and an eye witness to the scuffle, told FPJ.
Another student charged that the cops hit below the belt, so that the camera could not capture the blows (Ref: India Today). They were pushing us so hard that we got stuck in a stampede four or five times, the student alleged.
The protesters raised slogans like Kagaz Nahi Dikhayenge' (We will not show documents) and Jab Nahi Dare Hum Goron Se Toh Kyun Dare Hum Auron Se (When we did not fear the British, why should we fear others).
Male protestors formed a human chain on either side of the road as women walked ahead, waving the Tricolour and raising slogans of Halla Bol.
Hours after the stand-off, the Joint Commissioner of Police for southern range addressed the protesters and requested them to call off the protest but they refused.
It is dark now, some miscreants might infiltrate and create ruckus, better you call it off now, Srivastava added. But despite repeated appeals from the police and the varsity authorities, the protesters refused to end their agitation.
The protesters did not have permission to march towards Parliament. As the number of people joining the protest swelled by the evening, the Sukhdev Vihar Metro Station near the university was closed.