Aligarh: Calling the December 15 police crackdown on students protesting against the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill as “state sponsored violence”, the Aligarh Muslim University Students’ Union (AMUSU) has urged President Ram Nath Kovind to visit the varsity campus and meet the injured students.
In a 32-page report, the union highlighted how several students were left seriously injured in the police action and demanded an inquiry into the incident apart from strict action against “guilty” policemen and resignation of the university’s Vice Chancellor.
The union was elected in 2018-19. There is no elected union for the current year.
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Demanding a high-level inquiry into the incident by a sitting judge of the High Court and an assurance by the government that policemen who participated in what the report describes as “state sponsored terror” would be given “stringent punishment”, the union also demanded the immediate revocation of false cases against the students.
The union also sought the “immediate resignation of the Vice Chancellor, Prof Tariq Mansoor, the Registrar, Abdul Hamid and the entire Proctorial team”.
It has demanded that chief minister Yogi Adityanath must “compensate the loss of property suffered by the university during the police action” which includes an ambulance which the students claim was damaged by the policemen as it tried to reach the campus to transport injured students to a hospital.
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The report includes a detailed account of what occurred on the campus on Sunday night when the news of Jamia violence reached AMU.
It points out that anger was brewing among the leaders and had the district authorities communicated with them, the situation could have been prevented from spiralling out of control.
Peaceful protests had begun on Sunday evening but “some outsiders, who appeared to be over 40 and had their faces covered, started fomenting trouble”, it said.
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This group was responsible for cutting open the steel gate at Baab-e-Syed and their identities must be uncovered, the report said.
The union further warned that their “peaceful struggle for the withdrawal of the Citizenship (Amendment) Act would continue when the university reopens after the winter vacation on January 6”.
The report said that the AMU was turned into a “military garrison” but the students would mark the reopening of the campus by holding a “unity march” to honour those who were injured in the clash and will also present them with gallantry awards.
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They will also construct a ‘wall of resistance’ on the campus near the Maulana Azad Library to perpetuate the students’ struggle against the “state terror”.