No proof of violence by AMU students: Fact finding report

By Rohan Agarwal

Dec 24, 2019
New Delhi:  A fact finding report on the violent confrontation between the Uttar Pradesh police and protesters in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) on the night of December 15 has accused the UP police of indulging in “unprovoked violence in AMU, more brutal than even in Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI)”.

The report also aims gun at the university administration of “abandoning its students and throwing them to a hostile and pitiless state.”

The report titled, ‘The Siege of Aligarh Muslim University’, prepared by the Karwan-e-Mohabbat and Indian Cultural Forum gave a clean chit to the students as the investigators claimed they could not find any evidence of violence from the students’ side.

“Students attest that there was no provocation from their end to instigate the violence. The faculty also largely agree with this,” the report says as it targets the police for the confrontation.

Though the varsity lacked accounts from the security forces’ side.

“Yes, we did not talk to police, we were convinced by what we saw on the spot,” activist Harsh Mander,who led the fact finding team, said.

“Moreover our concern was not violence from students’ side, we want to focus on how police force was used irrationally on the students,” Mander added.

The report has blamed the university administration, district authorities and the police for failing at their duty.

“Their testimonies (students, teachers of AMU and doctors in the region) revealed that the university administration, district authorities and the state government, not only failed in their duty to protect the campus and its residents against the brutality by the UP police,” the report read.

The report also alleges that a PhD student lost his hand after a “stun grenade” exploded while he was holding it.

“The hand of a PhD student had to be amputated from below the wrist due to the injuries sustained from a stun grenade that exploded in his hand,” the report claimed.

Justifying the presence of stun grenades in the student’s hand, Mander said, “he thought it was tear gas grenade and its effect would come down if thrown in water, so he was trying to throw it away.”

The report also accuses security forces of using religious slurs during the face-off over the protesters and also launching violence over the detained students.

The fact finding team that reached the spot for investigation included, former IAS officer Mander, Nandini Sundar who is professor in Delhi University and journalist and human right activist John Dayal among others. IANS