CCTV footage show Delhi Police in action in Jamia library

The video clip shows a group of students reading in the library. They are probably surprised to see policemen in riot gear entering the reading room because initially, nobody reacts. They are still seated when the policemen begin hitting them, clearly without any provocation.

Delhi Police did not express any regret for the conduct of its policemen. Indeed, it has taken the official stand that the CCTV footage were being examined, insinuating that the footage could have been doctored. But two months after the incident, there is no sign of any explanation, leave alone any action against the uniformed men who seemed guilty of gross indiscipline, unless they were acting on orders from superiors.

Delhi High Court had asked Delhi Police to respond to a batch of petitions seeking a judicial inquiry into the incident. But nothing appears to have come of it so far.

The Jamia Coordination Committee, comprising students, alumni as well as faculty members, released the footage on Sunday in the social media. In a statement issued with the footage, JCC said, “The CCTV footage shows the brutal act of police forces and how the state-sponsored terrorists are playing the game of brutality on the students of Jamia who were preparing for their examination inside the Old Reading Hall of Library.

Reacting to the new footage, Delhi Police said the case is being investigated by the Crime Branch and the video is being probed.

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While the footage outraged many people, a few sought to defend the police action by citing violence out on the streets earlier in the day when an anti-CAA protest outside Jamia turned violent and buses were torched.

Later in the day, Jamia Millia Islamia University said the video had not been released by it. "It has come to our notice that some video with regard to police brutality in Dr Zakir Husain Library of the Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) is in circulation. This is to clarify that the video has not been released by the university," the institute's public relations officer Ahmad Azeem said.