As the siege of Jawaharlal Nehru University administrative building by a section of students over a missing hostel inmate entered the second day, Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar, who along with other officials is confined on the premises, on Thursday warned of action against the protesters.
Students, who are agitating over the alleged inaction of university in the case of missing student Najeeb Ahmed, have not allowed the vice chancellor and about 12 other officials to come out of the building since Wednesday afternoon though students and mediapersons have been able to access it.
“If all our efforts fail, if we continue to be confined like this and if we are prevented from doing our duty, we will have no other option but take suitable action. There is an important academic council meeting at 2.30 pm, and we have to leave this venue and go to another venue at around 2.15 pm,” the VC told reporters.
Rejecting allegations of inaction, he said they had written to the police about the missing student and an inquiry by the university will be expedited and the “guilty” will be punished.
Coming down heavily on protesting students, the VC said that several rounds of talks were held with them to convince them regarding the sincerity of the university to locate Najeeb but they were continuing with their “illegal” activity of holding hostage the authorities.
“This is a university run in a democratic manner. We value debate and discussion. That’s why we had several rounds of discussions with the students to convince them that the university is sincerely working to locate Najeeb Ahmed.
“We have tried by every possible means to convince the students that we are trying our best to locate Najeeb. However, they are not relenting and resorting to this kind of illegal means,” he said.
He asserted, however, that the university administration will not be “coerced” by “illegal means”.
“We cannot be coerced by these illegal means. The university has to be run in a proper manner and the academic activities should not suffer. We again appeal to the students not to resort to this kind of illegal activities which will affect the university.”
He said that no food or water was allowed in the administrative building as claimed by the agitating students during their overnight siege.
“We have no food. Students are spreading lie that they have sent food and water inside which is absolutely false,” he said.
Two of the officials, including a diabetic, were, however, allowed by the student to leave the building.
He said that university appealed to Najeeb through media and its website to come back as was demanded by the students and has also written several letters to police since he went missing on Saturday following a brawl on the campus the night before.
An FIR for kidnapping and wrongfully confining a person was lodged at Vasant Kunj North police station after the police received a complaint from the student’s guardians.
“The JNU administration had summoned 12 students to depose before the proctorial committee whose names have been associated with the incidence of violence at Mahi-Mandvi hostel on October 14.
“The committee has also asked anyone who wants to depose to come forward and help in the investigation. Condemning the students for blocking the administrative block, JNU teachers also urged the administration to put more pressure on the police to find Ahmed and appealed for him to return without fear of victimisation,” a statement said.
The vice chancellor and other top JNU officials briefed the media for the first time since the disappearance on October 15 and said that all necessary measures have been taken to trace the boy and is also in touch with the family.
“But we are really concerned about his safety and constantly in touch with the police providing them whatever information required. We also appeal to Najeeb if his is reading this to return to the university. We assure him of all help,” said Kumar.
Accepting the fact that so far no leads have been made on the episode of Ahmed’s disappearance from the campus, Kumar added, “nobody knows what has happened to him so far”.
“The family had filed a missing complaint and when we approached the police we were already told that an FIR has been lodged by the family,” said Chintamani Mahapatra, rector of JNU.
