'Kanhaiya might not have raised anti-national slogans'

New Delhi: JNU students’ union leader Kanhaiya Kumar, who was arrested on sedition charges, may not have raised anti-national slogans or made an inflammatory speech at the JNU event which is at the centre of a raging controversy, according to inputs from security agencies.

Home Ministry officials have suggested that slapping of the serious charge of sedition against Kumar could be an act of over enthusiasm on the part of some Delhi Police officers. Security agencies have conveyed to the Home Ministry that even 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.

Officials said the anti-India slogans were raised by students belonging to Democratic Students Union (DSU), considered to be a front of CPI (Maoists). Kumar belongs to AISF, the students’ wing of CPI, while DSU is an extreme left group. A students’ organisation of a mainstream political party can't get along with an organisation of extreme left ideology, officials said.

Besides, names of DSU leaders were only printed in the posters which were pasted in JNU campus, inviting the students to the event commemorating the death of Afzal Guru. Security agencies told the Home Ministry officials that Kumar did deliver a speech but it could not be considered as anti-national, they said. Slapping of sedition charge against Kumar could be an act of over enthusiastic police officers, officials said.

The event was also backed by the Committee for Release of Political Prisoners (CRPR), headed by former Delhi University lecturer SAR Geelani, who was also arrested on Tuesday on sedition charges. 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-Taiba founder Hafiz Saeed. Minister of State for Home Kiren Rijiju on Monday had said Hafiz Saeed was backing the incident in Jawaharlal Nehru University.

PTI