Irani quoted from JNU report having ‘partial facts’: Teachers

JNU teachers on Friday alleged that the varsity had sent a report with “partial facts” to the HRD ministry about the controversial event held against hanging of Afzal Guru and Smriti Irani made her statement in Parliament quoting from the same report.

“The HRD Minister quoted from a report sent to the ministry by JNU containing partial facts. The so called preliminary report of the high-level committee probing the event was finalised in a day’s time without consulting anyone,” JNU Teachers Association (JNUTA) president Ajay Patnaik told reporters.

In a hard-hitting speech in Lok Sabha, laced with emotion and anger, the HRD Minister had defended the action against students of JNU saying Kanhaiya Kumar and some other students had been found indulging in anti-national activities by the JNU authorities themselves. The statement by the minister has not only left the teachers “baffled” but also the students who say their names are now being “shouted” in Parliament because of the varsity’s “half-cooked” report.

Meanwhile, the student organiser of the Mahishasura event in JNU, Anil Kumar on Friday accused Irani of “lying” and “denied” that the statement she quoted from in Parliament was not “released” by him or his colleagues. “The pamphlet that Smriti Irani was reading in Parliament on Wednesday was not written by me or any of my mates,” said Anil, who was a PhD student at the varsity when the event took place in 2014.