New Delhi: Before the January 5 violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), the Delhi Police had written to the university authorities at least four times, stressing the need for them to ‘initiate dialogue with the JNUSU’, a senior official said Tuesday. The letters were written between November and December last year, he said.
In one of the letters written November 26 to JNU Registrar Pramod Kumar, the station house officer (SHO) of Vasant Kunj (North) police station had said ‘a major law and order issue was created’ as students were stopped twice by police during a protest march November 18 against a hostel fee hike.
The JNU Students’ Union (JNUSU) had given the call for the march towards Parliament.
‘The students are demanding a dialogue with the JNU administration, but no such initiative has yet been taken’ by the varsity and due to this the ‘students are very much agitated’, the SHO had stated in the letter.
Referring to another protest by the students November 9, the letter said, no one from the JNU administration came to meet the students. “On this the JNU students were very much agitated and they gave call to block the administrative office of JNU from 10.11.2019,” the letter said. The letter by the SHO was written a day before the JNUSU had called for another protest.
“It is therefore suggested that the JNU administration should start dialogue with the students of JNU so that the issues can be resolved between the students and the JNU administration. There has to be continuous dialogue with the elected representatives of JNUSU also,” the letter said.
The JNUSU has been on a strike against the draft hostel manual, which has provisions for fee hike, for nearly three months now.
PTI