NEW DELHI -- Another sedition-accused Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student joined the investigation on Saturday even as separatists shutdown the Kashmir valley to protest against the government crackdown on students and the arrest of a former Delhi University professor for allegedly raising anti-national slogans.
Ashutosh Kumar, who is also facing sedition charges for allegedly raising anti-national slogans on the campus, received a police summons on Friday. On Saturday he turned up at the R.K Puram Police Station, where two other students, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya, are being interrogated.
Ashutosh was the JNU students’ union president before Kanhaiya Kumar and was one among the five absconding students who returned to the campus on Sunday.
On Friday the police interrogated Kumar, who was arrested on February 12, and Khalid and Anirban, arrested earlier this week, together. The police have identified around 22 persons who were ‘active participants’ in the controversial 9 February event held to protest the 2013 hanging of parliament attack convict Afzal Guru.
The police had earlier identified 19 students who allegedly shouted anti-national slogans on campus, but a newspaper report earlier in the week rubbished the claim, saying 16 out of the list of 19 accused had passed out of JNU years ago and some of them were working abroad.
A former Delhi University professor, SAR Geelani is also behind the bars on charges of holding an event on the anniversary of Afzal Guru’s hanging at the Delhi Press Club where anti-national slogans were allegedly raised.
The police said that Ashutosh, Khalid, Anirban and a few others are believed to be the organisers of the event in which anti-national slogans were raised. Two students, Rama Naga and Anant Kumar, who were also absconding from the campus till Sunday, are yet to receive any summons.
Meanwhile, normal life was disrupted in Kashmir Valley on Saturday due to a strike called by separatist groups against the arrest of Geelani and the JNU students.
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