JNU students return to campus after day-long protest, 4 JNUSU members meet MHRD joint secretary

NEW DELHI: Four members of Jawaharlal Nehru University Student Union (JNUSU) including president Aishe Ghosh, vice president Saket Moon, general secretary Satish Chandra, joint secretary Mohd Danish on Monday met Ministry of Human Resources and Development joint secretary and put forward their demands to put an end to the ongoing protest by certain section of JNU students.

These office-bearers met the joint secretary after being released from police detention on Monday. The HRD secretary assured the students that the new committee will look into the matter and bring a solution to the problem. 

Demanding complete rollback of the hostel fee hike, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students` Union (JNUSU) on Monday carried out a march to Parliament, as the winter session began. As thousands of students marched towards Parliament, Section 144 was imposed in area near Parliament and at the gate of JNU on Baba Gangnath Marg to stop the students from joining the protest march. The students broke the barricades and clashed with the police reportedly deploying water canons in parts of Delhi to curb the violent students.

Service at four Delhi metro stations of Yellow line was temporarily suspended while several road routes were diverted leading to traffic snarls and massive inconvenience to the commuters.

As many as 100 JNU students were detained by the Delhi police for showing aggressive defiance to the police directions. The agitating students sat on a dharna at Safdurjung Tomb, demanding the release of those detained and a meeting with officials of the ministry. The top brass of Delhi police tried to initiate a dialogue with them and urged them to not take law into their hands.

Later, all the detained students were released and the students returned to their campus after day-long protest.

Denying reports of any sort of physical restraint on students, the Delhi Police released a statement and said, "The Delhi Police staff acted with restraint all along and, despite continued defiance by some groups of students, methods of persuasion were resorted to, and there was no use of water cannons, tear gas shells or lathi-charge at any stage of the protest."

"Women staff had been deployed in adequate numbers to deal with female protestors. Apart from 10 companies of CAPF, around 800 Delhi Police personnel were deployed to handle the protest and ensure the maintenance of law and order," it added.

JNU students have been protesting against its university's draft manual for over 21 days now because according to them the JNU administration has passed a draft hostel manual on October 3, 2019, without any consultation with the student community. They started their protest from October 29 by boycotting classes and examinations.

The agitating students of the JNU on Monday protested against Zee News, during their march to Parliament on the first day of winter session over their demand for a complete rollback of the hike in hostel fees and several other issues. During their march, placards displaying messages against Zee News were seen. A message read--'No nationalism in your DNA Zee News'.

The JNU students misbehaved with Zee News reporters during their march and used offensive language against the channel and its reporters. This is not the first time that the students have launched an attack on Zee News.