'Unlikely that JNU student leader Kanhaiya Kumar raised anti-India slogans'

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New Delhi: Kanhaiya Kumar, leader of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) Students Union (JNUSU), may not have raised anti-India slogans, officials at the Ministry of Home Affairs have suggested.

PTI reported on Tuesday that as per inputs from security agencies, Kanhaiya Kumar - arrested on charges of sedition - may also not have made any inflammatory speech at the JNU event which is at the centre of a raging controversy.

MHA officials are of the view that the Delhi Police may have acted out of “over enthusiasim” in slapping of the serious charge of sedition against Kumar.

MHA has been briefed on the case by security agencies which have concluded though Kumar was present at the event commemorating the death of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, he possibly did not raise any anti-India slogan nor did he speak anything anti-national that invites the charge of sedition.

It is believed that anti-India slogans were raised by students belonging to the Democratic Students Union (DSU), an extreme left group which is considered to be a front of CPI (Maoists).

Kumar, on the other hand, belongs to AISF, the students wing of mainstream CPI.

It has also been established that the posters, which invited students to the said event, had the names of only DSU leaders.

Further, security agencies have told the Home Ministry that the speech delivered by Kumar could not be termed anti-national.

The JNU event was also backed by the Committee for Release of Political Prisoners (CRPR), headed by former Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelani, who has also been arrested on sedition charges in connection with a separate event.

Geelani was given charge of CRPR, which was originally floated by Maoist sympathisers, possibly to bring people with extremist ideology, including Kashmiri separatists and Naga separatists, into one umbrella group.

Home Minister Rajnath Singh had said on Sunday that the JNU event in memory of Afzal Guru had received "support" from terror outfit Lashkar-e-Toiba founder Hafiz Saeed.

Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju Monday had said Hafiz Saeed was backing the incident in Jawaharlal Nehru University.

(With agency inputs)