JNU Violence: University Administration Press Release Says Winter Registration Trigger For Latest Clashes

What started with a minor scuffle between two groups of JNU students over registration in the new semester, within days turned the varsity campus into a battle field on Sunday (5 January), leaving several students and teachers severely injured.

The violence that shook the entire nation as visuals of profusely bleeding girl students and injured teachers were shared saw its seeds planted on Friday when in an attempt to restrict students from getting registered for new semester, some students allegedly barged into the room used to provide power to Wifi connection to entire campus and shut down the connection.

JNU administration has also released a press release saying that a group of student have been opposing the registration process for a few days. Further, the same group had beaten up students present for registration.

Top administration officials said that the students were identified and the university is in process to get a FIR registered against them.

"At about 1 pm, some 15-20 students barged into the Centre for Information System and locked the doors from inside. The electric connection to wifi devices wer shut down by these students," the official had said.

The protesting students claimed that stopping the registration process was essential as the registration was being done as per hiked fee structure.

However from early Saturday, cases of minor scuffles started to rise, with the Left-controlled JNUSU alleging that protesters were beaten up by students aligned with the RSS-affiliated ABVP. The allegation were met by counter allegations by ABVP.

But the situation turned ugly on Sunday when about 20-25 students of the ABVP were thrashed and assaulted by unidentified students, who the ABVP alleged, were members of Left student organisations.

"Around four to five hundred members of the left wing gathered around the Periyar hostel, vandalised the hostel and forcibly entered the hostel to thrash the ABVP activists inside," ABVP's JNU unit President Durgesh told IANS.

Soon after this incident, widespread violence broke out in the campus with students, including girls, assaulted in their hostel rooms by masked miscreants wielding wooden and iron rods and hostels vandalised.

Some teachers were also injured in the violence, in which outsiders were also allegedly involved.

(With Inputs from IANS)