In the latest investigation on the JNU violence that took place on the evening of 5th January 2020, India Today has made some striking revelations on how the entire operation took place and who were the possible assailants. Later hashtag #JNUTapes made it to the top Twitter trends.
This exclusive sting operation was conducted to get into the reality of the violence against the left students. India Today’s investigation team caught one of the main attackers on camera, who confessed that he coordinated the mobs from within and outside the campus. Identified as a first-year student of the French degree program at JNU, Akshat Awasthi confirmed that it was he who was seen attacking in the footage. Awasthi is as an activist of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (AVBP). He further claimed that the organised attack was in response to the activities of the Left group as he said, “It was a reaction to their action.”
The revelation went viral immediately and as expected, acquired a great deal of attention. The most striking in this was AVBP’s response. The right-wing student union outrightly responded that Awasthi is not and has never been a member of AVBP.
In response to India Today’s questions on Awasthi’s confession, Nidhi Tripathi, national general secretary of ABVP, said, “Aap jis student ki baat kar rahi hain pehli baat toh ABVP ka activist hi nahi hai. Aise kisi bhi vyakti ka naam bol dena aur uske upar ABVP ka tag laga dena aur kehna ki ABVP ne hinsa ki… mujhe lagta hai ki ye uchit nahi hoga.” (Firstly, the student you are talking about is not an ABVP activist. It would be wrong to brand anyone as an ABVP activist, and then blame ABVP for the violence).
She further assured that AVBP would be in absolute cooperation with the Police throughout the investigation procedure to get those punished who have tarnished the image of JNU.
In addition to this, a few things were disclosed about the left students as well. A left group member, Geeta Kumari confessed that she was involved in shutting down the university servers. When questioned on the same, she said, “Our VC does everything online, sends love letter (slang) online, sends Happy Near Year online, sends warnings online, so we thought that he had exceeded everything, there are no exams, none of our demands is met, he didn’t even meet us, so we decided to close the server room so that the administration does not function.”
With this sensational revelations, will the investigation now move in the right direction? Can the real culprits and the mastermind be now caught and punished? Well, that will surface with time, as the case progresses, however, the fact is, even after identifying several miscreants the Delhi police have not made a single arrest. Rather, a counter FIR has been lodged against Student Union President Aishe Ghosh who was seriously injured in the attack.