New Delhi: India’s top sportspersons, including former India opener Gautam Gambhir and Grand Slam winner Rohan Bopanna condemned Monday the attacks Sunday by an unidentified mob on students and professors of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU).
Violence broke out inside the JNU campus Sunday night as masked men armed with sticks attacked students and teachers and damaged property on the campus, prompting the administration to call in police who conducted a flag march.
“Such violence on university campus is completely against the ethos of this country. No matter what the ideology or bent of mind, students cannot be targeted this way. Strictest punishment has to be meted out to these goons who have dared to enter the University,” World Cup winning BJP MP Gambhir tweeted.
See link: https://twitter.com/GautamGambhir/status/1213901682544803840
Outspoken former India all-rounder Irfan Pathan said that such incidents do not help the country’s image. “What happened in JNU yesterday (Sunday) is not a regular incident. Students being attacked by armed mob inside University campus, in hostels, is as broken as it can get. This isn’t helping our country’s image,” Pathan wrote on his twitter page.
Senior Davis Cupper and former French Open mixed doubles champion Bopanna wrote: “Horrific and shameful what has happened in #JNU, The people responsible for these must be punished.”
See link: https://twitter.com/rohanbopanna/status/1214112809761431553
India’s doubles specialist shuttler Jwala Gutta also tweeted a couple of times.
“Are we all gonna be still quiet?? Watch this happen to our students?? Why the guilty ones weren’t caught and charged?? Why were the (sic) escorted out of the university?” she wrote.
However, the majority of the stars including the country’s cricketers maintained a stoic silence on the issue. But that they always do, not wanting to be part of any controversy. The usual riposte were ‘let’s first understand what is happening’ and ‘I am too far away to comment on the matter’.
Agencies