'Entered Jamia to restore order disrupted by arson, destruction of property'

New Delhi: The police on Friday told the Delhi High Court that it had entered the Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) university to restore order which was disrupted by incidents of arson and destruction of public property during the student protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) in December last.

The submission was made before a bench of Chief Justice D N Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan by Additional Solicitor General (ASG) Aman Lekhi during the hearing of a batch of petitions which have alleged that ruthless and excessive use of force and aggression was unleashed by the police and paramilitary forces on students at the university.

The pleas have sought setting up of an SIT or a Commission of Inquiry (CoI) to look into the violence at JMI in December last year in relation to student protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA).

Lekhi, continuing his arguments from where he had left it on August 5, said that the police entered the campus with a "legitimate objective" which was to restore order.

Merely because the place was a university and people involved in the violence were students does not mean that that action taken by police was uncalled for, he said and added that any such contention was a "flawed argument".

He said the university or any autonomous body cannot be seen as "terra incognita" (unknown territory) when such incidents take place.