NEW DELHI: The scenes at Jamia Millia Islamia University on Sunday evening were of a war zone. The streets were choc-a-bloc with police personnel even as loud sounds of tear gas shelling were heard from inside the campus. At the end of it, traumatised students were paraded out from the campus libraries and ambulances with broken windows were seen leaving the area late Sunday evening.
“We were in the reading hall of the old library where the police suddenly barged in. They asked the tensed readers and scholars around to evacuate the area immediately. It was absolutely traumatizing. They were evacuating students from everywhere, library, hostel, in fact the entire campus,” said Arusha Iqbal (name changed on request) who had been inside.
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“Ab maango azadi...ab aaya maza? (Ask for freedom now. Are you happy now?),' a policeman said loudly as we were paraded out,” she added.
“We were just studying inside. As we came out, we saw police had held many boys in semi-detention. They had been beaten up. One of our classmates pointed his fingers at them saying that we know them, but we all were so helpless,” said another student.
Some students alleged that the police were behaving like they were at “war with the university's students.”
“Our protests have been peaceful. I was at the protest yesterday also. They can't muzzle our voices like this.... it is not just a few of us but Muslim and non-Muslim students from across the states are participating in these protests. The government wants to finish Muslim community from India but no one is going to take these measures lying down,” said Fyka, a student of Bachelor of Dental surgery.
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The mayhem began after the protest turned violent near the New Friends Colony road where several buses were set afire and vehicles vandalised. The students dissociated themselves from the violence. Soon after the scenes of chaos, the protestors, locals and passerby’s ran towards the university campus road as the police covered the area and lathi-charged the crowd.
Electricity was cut across Jamia and areas surrounding it. As the police barged inside the campus including its old and new library, hostel and mosque, the area was completed besieged. The police had entered the campus soon after the violence in South Delhi during a protest against the amended Citizenship Act, police entered the Jamia Millia Islamia campus and blocked the university gates, claiming it wanted to nab some “outsiders” who had entered the premises to hide. Both the Jamia Millia students’ community, as well as the Teachers’ Association hade, disassociated themselves with the violence and arson that took place near the university Sunday afternoon, but that did not convince the police. There was a heavy deployment of police in and around the campus.
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“The Delhi Police virtually lay siege. We do not subscribe to the bus burning incident which happened but those who did it were not from the varsity but outsiders. Innocent students are being targeted,” claimed a student who did not wish to be named.
Some others alleged that students have been detained by the police, but there was no confirmation from the Delhi Police, which said they were focussing on bringing the situation under control. Meanwhile, Delhi Police personnel were also seen escorting their injured colleagues to safety as burnt tyres, buses and shards of glasses littered the street around them.
Videos of Jamia Millia Islamia students hunkered down in classrooms and toilets inside the university campus emerged. Other videos showed readings halls and libraries filled with smoke as students ran around covering their faces.