Khalid, others dare police to ‘arrest’ them, cops wait for their surrender

Despite high voltage drama of JNU students, police and the media, Delhi Police failed to arrest Umar Khalid and other nine students of JNU booked under the charges of sedition even though they have been freely walking and staying inside the JNU campus since Sunday evening. The police did not bother to enter inside the campus to make any arrest and are waiting them to surrender.

Delhi Police chief, B S Bassi who is going to retire from his services on February 29, said: “Let them surrender. They (the students) should join the probe. If they are innocent, they should present evidence of their innocence.” On the other hand, Khalid and other students including Anant and Rama Naga said “arrest us”.

It is worth mentioning that three days ago, the Delhi Police have issued a look out circular against three students of JNU, including Khalid as police suspect that these three students are part of the group which involved in anti-India sloganeering during the February 9 event organised in support of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.

The five students — Umar Khalid, Anant Prakash Narayan, Ashutosh Kumar, Rama Naga and Anirban Bhattacharya — returned to the campus on Sunday night, saying they wanted to be a part of the “struggle” against branding Jawaharlal Nehru University anti-national.

When asked if the police would enter the JNU campus to arrest the students, Bassi said his men are competent enough to deal with the situation. “The investigating officer would exercise the best available option. As far as the Delhi Police is concerned, we always aim for maintaining law and order situation of the city,” he added.

“If the named accused get arrested then it is proven that the police have sufficient evidences against them and if not it seems the team does not have essential evidences to arrest them,” said Bassi when asked whether they have proper evidences against the accused.

It seems that the police are playing it safe before arresting Khalid and other nine students as the law enforcing authority of the city have being cursed for arresting Kanhaiya without verifying the videos that were later found to be doctored. The FIR in possession with Millennium Post clearly states that the complaint was made on the basis of the video shown by Zee News and along with the complaint letter a CD containing the footage of the JNU event was enclosed as an evidence. Later, it was found that the video was doctored. However, the forensic report is awaited. 

A senior police official said: “There is a protocol that police cannot enter an educational institute until the concerned authorities permits them to. In case, the authority does not allow police to enter inside, a legal action can be taken against them under relevant charges of providing them shelter.” According to sources, a letter has been written to JNU Vice-Chancellor to allow them enter the JNU campus and Delhi Police are still waiting for his reply.

Meanwhile, Bassi met LG Najeeb Jung over the issue and briefed him about the updates in the case.