JNU Afzal Guru event: CBI finds raw footage 'genuine', new arrests likely

In a major upset for JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar and his team, the CBI forensic lab has found the raw video footage from the controversial 9 February JNU event to be authentic. A sedition case was registered against Kumar and two others on the basis of this footage.

Raw footage of the event was sent to the CBI forensic lab in Delhi for examination along with the camera, memory card, a CD containing the clip, wires, and other equipment.

"The CBI lab sent a report to Delhi Police's Special Cell saying the raw footage was authentic," a police source said. Special Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Arvind Deep confirmed the receipt of the report but did not divulge the details.

Earlier, Delhi Police had sent four video clips of the event to Gandhinagar-based Central Forensic Science Laboratory (CFSL), which in its report in May, had said that they were genuine.

In the FIR, police had claimed that in the video that a group of students led by JNU student Umar Khalid could be seen raising anti-India slogans, 21 of whose names were mentioned in an interim report filed a few days later into the case. According to media reports, 19 people have been identified from the footage, of which Kanhaiya, Umar, and Anirban were arrested earlier. Cops are considering if they can arrest the rest. Among the rest are other JNU students and few people of Kashmiri origin.

Kanhaiya, Umar Khalid, and Anirban Bhattacharya were arrested in February and later granted bail in the case, which is now being probed by Delhi Police's anti-terrorism unit Special Cell.

-With inputs from PTI