'Protected' by human chain, Jamia Millia Islamia students offer namaz outside varsity gates

New Delhi: Students and other people of the Muslim community offered Namaz prayers outside the gates of Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) University on Thursday. Members of other faiths formed a human chain around them in a symbolic protest against the alleged police crackdown in the varsity on Sunday night.

On Sunday, JMI Chief Proctor Waseem Ahmed KhanDelhi alleged that Delhi Police laid siege to campus after it entered its premises without permission. The police personnel chased the students inside classrooms, library and mosque and thrashed them, alleged JMI chief proctor.

It was also alleged that police fired live bullet rounds, hurled tear gas shells and forced the students to vacate the university premises. The police, however, denied firing bullets but admitted to using tear gas shells. Chinmoy Biswal, DCP South East Police said it entered the university to chase out outsiders who pelted stones at police from inside the campus.

Earlier in the day, two buses were set on fire at Delhi’s New Friends Colony which lies in the vicinity of the



varsity. Students who were protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act had clashed with the police earlier in the day. Protesting students have denied allegations of stone-pelting and arson by them - a charge that has largely been blamed as the trigger for the police crackdown thereafter.

JMI V-C Najma Akhtar said that students did not call for protests on Sunday instead dubbed the Sunday violence as the handiwork of people from nearby colonies. She said the police, who entered the university chasing this mob could not differentiate them from the students in the library.  After the alleged police clampdown on the JMI campus, several Delhi Police officers, including Additional Police Commissioner of South-Eastern district Kumar Gyanesh were transferred.

Protests also broke out in Aligarh Muslim University on Sunday after distressing images and videos of the incident went viral online.

AAP MLA Amanatullah Khan yesterday announced Rs 5 lakh and a job to a JMI student who suffered an eye injury during a protest against the amended Citizenship Act.