NEW DELHI: Even as the Centre is yet to act upon Jamia Millia Islamia’s demand for an inquiry into the police action on its students following protests against the new citizenship law, the university administration has decided to form its own fact-finding team to probe the incidents of the day. The university had requested the Union Human Resources Development Ministry to either constitute a high-level committee or order a judicial inquiry into the December 15 incident.
In a meeting of university authorities on Wednesday, it was decided that an internal committee comprising of 20-25 professors will be constituted to probe the incident from “all possible angles.” “This we are doing so that we have our response ready when the HRD Ministry constituted panel asks for details from us,” Jamia vice-chancellor Najma Akhtar told this newspaper on Thursday The JMI administration had expressed strong displeasure at the police entry inside the campus saying that the police never sought its permission to launch a crackdown on the students.
“Had we wanted police help, we would have alerted them, but there was no trouble inside and the police just forced its way in,” said Akhtar. “We are mainly peeved that students reading inside the library —who were not protesting in any way — were also targeted by police personnel,” she added Another Jamia official said that the internal committee will also assess the damage to the university infrastructure during the police crackdown.
She added that the university will also send a detailed report of the incident to the National Human Rights Commission as asked by it. Officials in the HRD Ministry meanwhile said that at the moment there was no consideration to form any panel as demanded by the university.