Court seeks status report from police on case relating to January 5 violence at JNU

A court in Delhi on Tuesday directed the crime branch of Delhi police to file a status report in a case relating to an attack on students and teachers in the JNU campus on January 5.

The court was hearing a plea filed by Professor Sucharita Sen, who suffered head injuries during the attack allegedly by masked people inside the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus on the date of incident, seeking registration of FIR in a case.

Metropolitan Magistrate Vipul Sandwar passed the direction after taking on record a status report filed by the police station of Vasant Kunj, North in pursuant to an earlier order.

The report filed by police on Tuesday said that an FIR was filed in the matter which has now been transferred to the crime branch along with the present complaint filed by Sen.

As per the submissions and the status report the only thing that can be ascertained is that an FIR at the crime branch has been lodged.

Let a status report be called from crime branch, New Delhi within seven days from today mentioning the details of the FIR and the action taken pursuant to it, the judge said in the two-page order and posted the matter for May 18.

In her submission, the professor claimed that no action has been taken so far and that the case that was transferred to crime branch was a separate FIR.

In her plea, she had told the court that the lodging of an FIR was urgent since investigation could take place only after the case is registered.

The court had in February directed the Station House Officer (SHO) concerned to file an action taken report (ATR).

The professor had said she had to approach the court on account of inaction on the part of the police authorities despite "clear and cogent" facts and underlying material placed by her before the investigating agency.

On January 5, masked men armed with sticks and rods attacked students and teachers and damaged property on the campus, prompting the administration to call in police which conducted a flag march.

At least 28 people, including JNU Students'' Union president Aishe Ghosh, were injured as chaos reigned on the campus for nearly two hours.

Union HRD Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank, Senior Union ministers and JNU alumni S Jaishankar and Nirmala Sitharaman had condemned the violence.