Police Crackdown at Jamia Unauthorised, Unjustified and Excessive: Fact Finding Report

A fact finding report by the civil panel into the incidents of police brutalities at the Jamia Millia Islamia on December 13 and 15 has concluded that the police action was “aimed at causing injury to the protesters.”

On Thursday, December 26, People’s Union for Democratic Rights (PUDR) released the report, titled ‘Bloody Sunday 2019’. A six member team visited the Jamia campus from December 16 to 19 and conducted a fact-finding investigation.

“The entry of the police into the campus is without authorisation and even without informing the University authorities, failures that cannot be justified by statements that the police was chasing protesters,” the report said. According to the report, a march call against Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and nationwide National Register of Citizens (NRC) was given by the students and teachers of Jamia Millia Islamia on December 15.

The rights group found the use of lathi-charge and tear gas by the Delhi Police to be “unrelenting” and “cruel”, which continued even after the crowd had started to disperse. Reconstructing the sequence of events, the fact-finding team documented that the police entered the campus and “indiscriminately” beat up students and used lathis to smash motorcycles.

Also read: How Violence Flared up in and Around Jamia on Sunday

Following the entry of the police into the library, reading room and masjid, the fact-finding team accuse the police of deliberately targeting persons “unconnected” with the protest demonstration.

NewsClick has earlier reported that as many as 50 students were detained during the Sunday protests. “Wild baton blows” and “communal slurs” were thrown at them throughout their detention, the students told NewsClick.

Calling the detentions “completely arbitrary”, the fact finding team refers the cruelty shown by the police as a means “to only terrorise the university and neighbouring areas.”

The fact finding report on the violence in Jamia Millia Islamia comes only few days after another fact finding team accused the Uttar Pradesh police, which entered Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on December 15 and “brutally” attacked students, to be surcharged with “communal hatred.”

Both the central universities faced a police crackdown in the wake of protests against the CAA and nationwide NRC.

Also read: The Siege of Aligarh Muslim University: A Fact Finding Report

An FIR should be registered against the Delhi police, and the personnel and officers who were part of the attack on students in Jamia must be “shunted out of the police station without delay”, the rights group demanded on Thursday. It also asked the higher judiciary to take suo moto notice of the happenings.

On December 17, the Supreme Court refused to take up pleas against police atrocities on Jamia and AMU students. On the other hand, Delhi High Court, while issuing a notice to the Centre, the Delhi Government and the police, refused to provide any interim relief to student protesters from any coercive action, including arrest.