CAA protests: Police use brutal force against Jamia students, AMU erupts

Police forcibly entered the Jamia Millia Islamia campus on Sunday evening, fired tear gas shells and brutally beat up the students and staff after protests against the newly-enacted Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in south Delhi turned violent and some miscreants torched three DTC buses, vandalised private vehicles and pelted the police with stones some distance away from the Jamia campus.

The police action on Jamia students flared a protest in the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) in Aligarh where agitated students clashed with the police.

In Delhi, the police fired tear gas shells at the Jamia library where hundreds of students were holed up and then barged into the building. Some of the students who were later herded by the police out of the building with their hands up, alleged that policemen ransacked the library and brutally beat them up. Those complaining also included girls.

More than 100 students are said to be injured in the police crackdown who have been admitted in different hospitals.

A woman journalist working with the BBC, Bushra Shaikh, said that policemen rained batons on her and snatched her cellphone despite her showing them the press ID card.

“They (police) pulled my hair and roughed me up. When I demanded my phone back, they hurled expletives at me,” she said.

Jamia Vice Chancellor Najma Akhtar said that it was absolutely wrong to say that the miscreants who torched the vehicles were Jamia students.

“It is not possible for anyone to say who are those people in the crowd. My appeal to the media is that please don’t associate Jamia with these protests. We don’t know who these people on the road are who are,” Akhtar said while speaking with NDTV.

University Proctor Waseem Ahmed Khan said that the police entered the campus without permission and beat up students and the varsity staff, including the girls.

The police have detained over two dozens students and they were not being allowed to meet their lawyers.

Soon after the news of arson and vandalism came, a Jamia students' body claimed that they had nothing to do with the violence and arson and alleged that "certain elements" had joined in and disrupted the demonstration. The Jamia teachers association too condemned the violence.

However, Deputy Commissioner of Police (South East) Chinmoy Biswal said stones were pelted from inside the university campus at police personnel, forcing them to use teargas to disperse the "violent mob".

Delhi police spokesman DCP Mandeep Singh Randhawa said that the police used force only after the protesters tried to move beyond the area for which permission was given and protesters turned violent. They also pelted stones at the police and torched several vehicles near Sarai Julena and New Friends Colony, he said.

Aligarh Muslim University erupts

As the news of brutal police crackdown spread, tension gripped the AMU in Aligarh where students gathered to protest against the police action and the CAA. They clashed with the police following which police resorted to lathicharged and firing tear gas shells. The police entered the AMU campus and some of the policemen vandalised the students’ two-wheelers parked in the campus.

AMU Registrar Abdul Hamid announced the immediate closure of the university till January 5.

Protests outside Delhi Police Headquarters

Later in the evening, Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union (JNUSU) gave a call for a protest demonstration outside the Delhi Police Headquarters t ITO against the police action at Jamia university.

Hundreds of students, activists and leaders gathered outside the PHQ and till the time of filing this report, the protesters were stationed outside the PHQ, braving December chill.

The Delhi Metro closed entry/exit at several stations in view of the protests.

AAP blames BJP for arson

Delhi Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia on Sunday accused the Bhartiya Janata Party (BJP) of playing dirty politics and using the police to set DTC buses on fire to vitiate the atmosphere ahead of the Delhi Assembly elections next month.

He also shared on his Twitter handle a video in which a policeman is seen asking a man to carry a barrel of liquid and pour it into the bus, while another policeman takes the barrel from the man and tumbles it into an orange-coloured DTC cluster bus.

“There must be an immediate and impartial probe into what these men in police uniform are sprinkling from yellow and white cans into the buses just before the buses were set on fire. And on whose behest it was done?,” Sisodia tweeted.

“It is clear in the picture that the BJP has played the dirty politics and had the buses torched,” he added.