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JNU row: 'Kanhaiya Kumar may not have made an inflammatory speech'

News Agencies | Updated on: 14 February 2017, 5:41 IST

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 on 9 February, according to inputs from security agencies.

Home Ministry officials have suggested that slapping sedition charges 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 may not have raised any anti-India slogans or said anything anti-national that deserved the sedition charges slapped against him.

Officials said that thee anti-India slogans were raised by students belonging to Democratic Students Union (DSU), considered to be a front of CPI (Maoists). Kumar belongs to the AISF, the students wing of the CPI, while the 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 printed on the posters which were pasted in JNU campus, inviting the students to the event commemorating the death of Afzal Guru.

Security agencies told Home Ministry officials that Kumar did deliver a speech but it could not be considered as anti-national. Slapping sedition charges against him could, therefore, be an act of "over enthusiastic" police officers, officials said.

The 9 February 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.

Geelani was given charge of the CRPR, which was originally floated by Maoist sympathisers, possibly to bring people with an extremist ideology, including Kashmiri separatists and Naga separatists, under 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 16 February said that Saeed had backed the incident at the varsity.

PTI

First published: 17 February 2016, 11:01 IST