JNU violence: Delhi Police identifies masked girl in January 5 video, to be served notice soon

A Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the Delhi Police have identified the masked girl, involved in the violence at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on January 5. The girl was seen in the videos wearing a checked shirt with a stick in her hand and a mask on her face. She was part of the mob that unleashed violence in JNU's Periyar Hostel. 

The girl has been identified as a student of Daulat Ram College, Delhi University (DU). The Delhi Police will soon serve her a notice to join the investigation. "SIT team has identified that the masked woman who was seen in videos of #JNUViolence is from Delhi University. She will be soon served notice to join the investigation," news agency ANI reported quoting the Delhi Police.

On January 5 evening, a masked mob entered the JNU campus armed with sticks and iron rods and launched an attack on students and teachers. They also entered students' hostel and vandalised campus property. Several people, including JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh, JNUSU General Secretary Satish Chandra and many teachers received grievous injuries. More than 30 students, including Ghosh, were taken to the AIIMS Trauma Centre in the national capital. 

In the JNU case, the nine students who were given notice by the crime branch will interrogate the students on Monday. The inquiry will start at around 11 am. If the Crime Branch officials agree, then the inquiry will be done in the JNU campus. The crime branch team has opened its camp office inside the campus.

The Delhi High Court is likely to hear the petitions of three professors of the JNU to preserve CCTV footage and other WhatsApp evidence related to January 5 violence inside the varsity campus. The petitioners have urged the HC to instruct WhatsApp Inc, Google Inc and Apple Inc to secure or collect back all the data related to WhatsApp groups- 'Unity Against Left' and 'Friends of RSS'- in the JNU violence. The data includes messages, photos, videos and phone numbers etc.

The petition filed by JNU professors Amit Parameshwaran, Atul Sood and Shukla Vinayak Sawant has also urged the court to give necessary directions to the Delhi Police Commissioner and the Delhi government. The petition, filed by advocates Abheek Chimney, Manav Kumar and Roshni Namboodri, submitted before the court to order the Delhi Police to collect all CCTV footage related to violence in the JNU campus.

The three professors approached the High Court in the wake of several complaints filed with the Delhi Police in the JNU campus violence. Notably, as many as 14 complaints have been filed. Earlier, the police appealed to people to come and dispose of the video of the JNU violence. In response to it, around 12 people contacted the police and recorded their statements. 

On December 12, JNU Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar said that a committee has been formed to hold discussions over raising the hostel fees in 2016, and it would to wrong to say that this decision was taken in a hurry.