During his questioning by the Delhi Police, students' union leader Kanhaiya Kumar has claimed that he was not part of the pro-Afzal Guru event that took place in the Jawaharlal Nehru University. Sources say that he claimed that the participants of the event that took place on February 9 were also not JNU students.
Kanhaiya has been arrested in a case of sedition and criminal conspiracy in connection with the alleged anti-national event inside the university premises and is in police custody till Wednesday. He will be produced in court later in the day.
He has maintained that he did not raise any anti-India slogans and some outsiders did the same. Though he has said that he was not part of the Democratic Students Union (DSU), police are questioning him about the functioning of the outfit. Police are also questioning him about the whereabouts of the other people who have been named in the police report.
Meanwhile, the 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 sedition charges.
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