Manhandled at JNU, Yogendra Yadav Recalls 1982 But Says Cops Protecting Goons is '1st for Campus'

New Delhi: Lashing out at JNU vice-chancellor over his indifference, Swaraj Abhiyan chief Yogendra Yadav on Sunday said that M Jagadesh Kumar has presided over the intellectual as well as physical destruction of the university. He said police personnel deployed on the campus were standing instead of controlling the situation.

"He (Jagadesh Kumar) should leave the university immediately if there is any shame left in him. He has already presided over the intellectual destruction of the university and now he is presiding over its physical destruction," Yadav told News18 after being allegedly manhandled outside the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus following clashes between members of the students' union and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the youth wing of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).

The Swaraj Abhiyan chief wondered how did a group get into the campus when the university usually has strict entry norms. "In such a case, any other VC would have provided protection to the students. He would have called the media and gone on TV to show what was happening. But nothing was done," he said.

Yadav also recalled that once in 1982, police had entered JNU but the varsity had never seen the kind of violence it witnessed on Sunday evening. "I have seen the campus for 37 years but nothing like this happened before. Police have entered the campus before. It was in 1982. But I have not seen something like this before where private goons enter, attack the campus protected by police," the leader said.

Alleging that police personnel were mere spectators, the activist said, "If the police is afraid, they can take out their uniform". Yadav said that it was not spontaneous but a well-planned attack as the "viral screenshots of WhatsApp group 'Friends of RSS' showed members planned to assemble outside JNU".

Members of JNU students' union and the ABVP clashed on the campus in the evening, sources said, adding it happened during a public meeting organised by the university's teachers' association.

The students' union president Aishe Ghosh and many other students and teachers were injured during alleged stone-pelting by ABVP members. However, the RSS-backed students' organisation has alleged its members were brutally attacked by Left-affiliated student outfits and 25 of them were injured.