Criticising the punishments given to students in connection with the February 9 event marking the death anniversary of Afzal Guru in JNU, the students are going to start an indefinite hunger strike from Wednesday.
The JNU Students’ Union on Tuesday announced that they “out-rightly reject” the punishments meted out to students, based on the recommendations of the High-level Enquiry Committee (HlEC) enquiry panel, which is “casteist” and “anti-reservation” and the students will not follow them.
As per the recommendations of the committee, Umar Khalid has been rusticated for two semesters, Anirban Bhattacharya rusticated till July 15 and campus was made out of bounds for him for the next five years.
“We had opposed the formation of the HlEC earlier and now we reject the punishments given to students based on recommendations of the same panel. When the committee is questionable, its result will always be questionable. It is a casteist and anti-reservation committee, which was headed by Rakesh Bhatnagar, who is the head of youth for equality cell and known for his caste-based treatment with students,” JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar said while addressing a press conference on Tuesday.
“What is worse is the fact that the committee announced its verdict without even taking the versions of the students concerned,” he added.