(Image source from: JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar arrested for sedition in anti-India protests})

JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar arrested in the anti-India protests in Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) against the hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru. Kumar was arrested two days after JNU witnessed clashes between two student groups over the Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru, who was hanged on February 09, 2013 in Tihar Jail.

Marking the death anniversary of Guru, a group of students on Tuesday held an event on the campus and shouted slogans against government for hanging him, despite varsity administration having cancelled the permission following a complaint by ABVP members, who termed the activity as "anti-national".

The students' union has been booked for sedition. The police have claimed that Kumar was seen in a video in which people were allegedly raising anti-national slogans. He was arrested from a hostel on the JNU campus by police personnel in plain clothes. On Friday, the police has booked Delhi University professor SAR Geelani for sedition and issued a summons to him.

The JNU administration has already instituted a "disciplinary" inquiry as to how the event took place despite withdrawal of permission and said it will wait for the probe report before taking any further action.

Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said an FIR under Section of 124 A of IPC (sedition) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) has been registered against unknown persons at Vasant Kunj (North) Police station and the video footage of the event was being examined for further action.

CPI (M)'s D Raja 'strongly condemned' the arrest of the JNU students' union president. MoS home Kiren Rijiju said, "Those living in our country and still raising such slogans against it is not acceptable. We take such incidents very seriously."

The controversy erupted in JNU earlier this week when some students had pasted posters across the campus inviting people to a protest march against the "judicial killing of Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt" and in solidarity with the "struggle of the Kashmiri people for their democratic right to self-determination" at the varsity's Sabarmati dhaba.

Members of ABVP objected to the event and wrote to the vice-chancellor that such protests should not be held on the campus of an educational institution, prompting the university administration to order the cancellation of the march as they "feared" it might "disrupt" peace.

By Premji