JNU attack state-sponsored: Fact-finding Committee

New Delhi: Revealing that the January 5 attack inside the university campus was “state-sponsored”, a fact-finding committee of the Congress on the JNU violence on Sunday recommended Vice-Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar be dismissed and criminal investigation be initiated against him.

A four-member fact-finding committee, comprising of Hibi Eden, MP and former NSUI president, Syed Naseer Hussain, MP and former president of JNU NSUI and Amrita Dhawan, a former NSUI president and ex-DUSU president, was appointed by the Congress to carry out a detailed inquiry into the violence at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).

According to Sushmita Dev, member of the committee, the committee recommended that Kumar be dismissed immediately and all appointments in faculty should be probed and an independent inquiry should take place.

India Today quoted the Mahila Congress chief as saying “A criminal investigation must be initiated against the VC, the company that provides security service and members of the faculty who conspired with the attackers to unleash the violence at Sabarmati hostel, Periyar hostel and other places. The security company’s contract must be immediately terminated.”

Leftist outfits and the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) blamed each other for the violence that erupted on January 5 night in which masked people armed with rods and sticks stormed the JNU campus and assaulted students and faculty members, and vandalised property, leaving several people injured.