JNU Violence: Delhi Police Says It Has Identified 37 Students From WhatsApp Group

On Friday, police said the WhatsApp group 'Unity Against Left', believed to have been created while the violence escalated on the JNU campus, was under the scanner.

Delhi Police has identified 37 students from a WhatsApp group created during the January 5 violence on the JNU campus, sources said.

New Delhi: Delhi Police has identified 37 students from a WhatsApp group created during the January 5 violence on the JNU campus, sources said. They said the identified people do not belong to any left or right leaning organisations. Those identified are students who were in favour of the semester registration process and wanted to enrol themselves, the sources said. On Friday, police said the WhatsApp group 'Unity Against Left', believed to have been created while the violence escalated on the JNU campus, was under the scanner. Addressing a press conference, the police had claimed that nine students, seven of whom are from Left leaning bodies including JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh, were identified as suspects in the violence on the varsity campus. The others included Dolan Samanta, Priya Ranjan, Sucheta Talukdar, Bhaskar Vijay Mech, Chunchun Kumar (an alumnus of JNU) and Pankaj Mishra. Watch | JNU: Police traces 37 members of WhatsApp group planning attack The remaining two suspects named by police are Vikas Patel and Yogendra Bharadwaj. Police sources said the two are from the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP). The preliminary findings in the probe by a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of the police also released pictures of the nine suspects. The police also claimed that the violence was a fallout of the online registration process and that tension was brewing in the university since January 1. The Student Federation of India (SFI), All India Students Association (AISA), Democratic Students Federation (DSF) and All India Student Federation (AISF) had been allegedly "creating nuisance and threatening the students" against the recently started online admission for the winter semester in the varsity, the police had said. The students' union of JNU, however, had termed the press conference as bogus. Several students of the varsity said that they had received notices from Delhi Police seeking a meeting with them in the next few days.