Afzal Guru row divides students, teachers at JNU campus

The Jawaharlal Nehru University seems to have been divided down the middle over the Afzal Guru row. While Left-leaning teachers and students are waging a movement for the release of JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar who has been arrested for sedition charges, the rightwing too has upped the ante for getting the culprits punished. While Left-leaning teachers have extended their support to Leftist student bodies, those from the other side of the ideological divide too jumped into fray on Saturday. A group of right-leaning teachers led a delegation to V-C M Jagdesh Kumar in solidarity with the ABVP struggle against "anti-nationalism" on the campus.

"We met the V-C and extended support to the ABVP movement on the campus. We also assured the V-C of our support as he has come under attack from some quarters within the JNU fraternity so as to shield the accused," said assistant professor Gautam Jha of the School of Languages in JNU. The delegation was also joined by the Karmachari Union. Meanwhile, Chancellor of the university K Kasturirangan visited the campus and took stock of the situation even as four deans wrote to the V-C protesting against the manner in which police crackdown was allowed by the university.

The chancellor held a meeting with the administration and also met representatives of the students and teachers. "We briefed him about the situation on the campus during the meeting. We assured him there is no police patrolling inside the campus and there was no crackdown on students yesterday. Police came to Brahmaputra hostel and took Kanhaiya away and nobody else was attacked," JNU registrar Bhupinder Zutshi said.

The Left has attacked Kumar of having let the police continue with their crackdown on the campus. "The new-vice chancellor is acting on the instructions of the government and allowed the police to go ahead with a crackdown. This is happening across all universities that V-Cs are being removed and the government is appointing persons who are then acting on their instructions. This is a very serious matter and the way all students are being branded anti-national, we have raised all the issues with Rajnath Singh," alleged former JNUSU president and CPM leader Sitaram Yechury.

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