Student blinded in one eye urges for compensation in HC

new delhi: Mohammed Minhajauddin, the Jamia Millia Islamia student who was blinded in one eye due to alleged police brutality inside his university campus on the night on December 15 last year, on Wednesday, urged the Delhi High Court for directions to release his compensation amount.

The Delhi High Court on Wednesday continued the hearing on a batch of petitions seeking an independent investigation into allegations of police brutality inside the Jamia Millia Islamia University campus in December last year as the anti-CAA protests in the Capital were catching on.

Minhajauddin, represented by advocate Siddharth Seem, sought exemplary compensation for his client, an LLM student at JMI, before a bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan.

The lawyer read out portions from the student's testimony. "Police were dragging students out of the toilets in order to beat them. He received blows to his head and his left eye. Police refused to assist the person whose eye was bleeding," Seem submitted, adding that the incidents showed "complete apathy of police". "They are supposed to protect fundamental rights, not to attack the eyes of a person," the advocate submitted, seeking a compensation of at least Rs 5 crore while admitting that no amount of compensation could be enough in his client's case.

The advocate further argued that Minhajauddin was not part of any protests and was studying in the library when the police allegedly brutalised him.

Advocate Sneha Mukherjee also made submissions in the matter, appearing for students whose legs had been fractured in the attack. While she argued that police had forcibly entered the library and beat up students who had nothing to do with protests, she also added that CCTV footage corroborated her submissions.

However, Additional Solicitor General Aman Lekhi, for Delhi Police, refuted all allegations and sought another date for arguing his case with the court posting the matter for August 14.