JNU students toe warpath, avoid police

Jawaharlal Nehru University is witnessing a battle of attrition since Sunday night with the return of the bunch of five students who caused tension on the campus and went underground even as the police were on the look-out for them. The police have surrounded the campus to effect arrests of the students who organised a seditious meeting on the campus on February 9 and raised anti-India slogans. The meeting openly eulogised Afzal Guru, rank terrorist who masterminded the attack on Indian parliament while co-ordinating with Pakistan origin terrorists. To evade the arrest, the students stayed put at the adminsitrative building putting pressure on the Vice-Chancellor. The police are awaiting the Vice-Chancellor's permission to effect the arrests. The VC, Jagdeesh Kumar, is hunting with the students and running with the police so far. Now that the issue has taken international dimensions with the interest being shown, among others, by US linguistic professor and philosopher, Noam Chomsky, the Vice-Chancellor was playing it safe. The students, facing arrest on sedition charges, are saying that they would surrender before the court. But there is no such provision or possibility since their students union president, Kanhaiya Kumar, was repeatedly given a taste of the public domain when he was bruised in a stampede at the Patiala House court. The JNU students are apparently not interested in studies as such since they are spending their study time by being influenced by anti-national forces, aided by some opposition parties in the country. They are more interested in confronting and defying the law and creating problems for the people outside the campus than to study. If they can afford to bunk classes for 10 days running on non-academic and political grounds, it is their choice.