‘ATTACK ON CCTV GRID IS LINKED TO CAMPUS VIOLENCE TWO DAYS LATER'

JNU V-C says raid on data centre aimed at disabling cameras so that full recording of Sunday’s vandalism would not be possible

- Rahul Kanwal

UNDER fire for his handling of the growing unrest on campus, JNU Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar blames the protesting students for the problem, saying they shut the dialogue down.

As head of an educational institution, Kumar is also trapped in a Catch-22 on whether or not to call the police when things begin to spin out of control.

In a wide-ranging interview to India Today TV, the Vice-Chancellor inferred that the genesis of Sunday’s masked attack at the Jawaharlal Nehru University centred around a similar raid two days before on a separate JNU facility.

LINKING ONE ATTACK WITH THE OTHER

Asked about the rod-wielding men who ran amuck on campus, assaulting mainly Left-leaning students on the evening of January 5, Kumar offered no immediate clues about their identity, citing the ongoing investigations.

“For me, as the head of the institution, all my students are the same. I don’t distribute them into any camps. But what happened on the 5th also has origins on what happened in the past few days,” he insisted.

According to the V-C, his university's communication and information services centre was attacked by around a dozen mask-wearing students on January 3. “They came, abused and forced the technical staff to come out of the CIS premises. They took control of our data centre and shut down the whole thing. I am wondering if the students were protesting and working for a right cause, why they should cover and hide their faces,” he said.