JNU row: Khalid, Anirban questioned; sent to three-day police custody

Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, the two students who surrendered on the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, are being questioned by the Delhi Police for their alleged involvement in raising 28 inflammatory slogans during an event inside JNU campus on February 9. They have been reportedly sent to three-day police custody. 

Khalid and Anirban, accused of sedition, surrendered hours after the High Court refused to protect them from arrest. The police drove around for almost two hours in an effort to hoodwink the media before taking the students to the police station. Before their arrest, they were questioned for almost five hours, a source close to investigation said. 

The source further said: “The duo told the cops that there were some outsiders who were not part of JNU but joined the event and raised anti-India slogans.” Since the intervening night of Tuesday and Wednesday, around one dozen videos of the events were shown to two students to identified all the persons in those videos. They have identified some outsiders and the probe is on to establish their identities, he added. 

However, a new video, showing alleged outsiders raising anti-India slogans during a controversial February 9 event in JNU, has given a fresh twist to the case even as police informed the Delhi High Court about presence of some “foreign elements” at the gathering. 

“The entry register maintained by the university is also being scanned along with the CDR of Khalid and Anirban. They have reportedly told the police that there was no external source of funding for the Afzal Guru event and that posters were made in the computer lab of the university,” the police officer, who does not wished to be named said. 

While being interrogated about the planning and execution of the event, they told police that Khalid conceived the idea of the Afzal Guru event while Anirban prepared posters and other publicity materials. He further distributed and pasted them in the campus. 

The police asked the two about their whereabouts during the incident and also on their alleged raising anti-national sloganeering. 

Both Umar and Anirban revealed to the police about their location when they were absconding and also assisted the police in the interrogation.

The two students had gone to High Court on Tuesday requesting that they be allowed to surrender at a secret location. 

They cited the example of the attack on their comrade Kanhaiya Kumar by lawyers when he was being taken to the court for a bail hearing last week. 

The court denied their request, but told the police on Wednesday: “Ensure there is no error while producing Umar Khalid and Anirban before the magistrate.” The court said that the students’ lawyers and the police should prepare a strategy together for the hearing. 

For their safety, a magistrate went to RK Puram police station and both were produced before him. 

The magistrate sent the duo for three-day police custody.