By Shuriah Niazi
NEW DELHI (AA) – Two students from New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) have been suspended for organizing an on-campus event in February at which “anti-national” slogans were allegedly used.
The university administration this week suspended students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya for one semester and five years respectively.
The two, along with JNU student union leader Kanhaiya Kumar, were also slapped with fines, while Kumar has since been charged with “sedition” by the authorities.
The event, which took place on the JNU campus on Feb. 9, was organized to protest the execution three years earlier of Afzal Guru, a prominent Kashmiri resistance leader who was convicted by an Indian court for involvement in a 2001 attack on India’s parliament.
Participants at the campus event allegedly called for the independence of Kashmir and shouted “anti-India slogans”.
Kumar was arrested a few days afterward while Khalid and Bhattacharya later handed themselves in to police.
All three were charged with “sedition”, although Khalid and Bhattacharya were both released on bail last month.
The university announced its decision to suspend Khalid and Bhattacharya on Monday based on the recommendations of a “high-level inquiry committee” drawn up to look into the incident.
“The committee arrived at its conclusion based on depositions, video clips and documents,” the JNU administration said in a statement.
“As per the findings, the application for holding the event circumvented the permission process and the organizers disobeyed instructions,” the statement read.
The decision, however, has been opposed by the JNU students’ union, the leaders of which have vowed to launch a nationwide campaign to have the decision reversed.
Guru was hanged in India’s Tihar Prison on Feb. 9, 2013 at the age of 43 after a court convicted him of involvement in the 2001 attack. His execution triggered protests across the disputed Kashmir region.
Since his death, his family — along with Kashmir’s pro-independence leadership — has continued to demand that the Indian authorities hand over his remains.
Kashmir, a Muslim-majority Himalayan region, is held by India and Pakistan in parts and claimed by both in full.
Pakistan and India have fought three wars — in 1948, 1965 and 1971 — since the partition of the latter in 1947. Two of the conflicts were fought over Kashmir.
Since 1989, Kashmiri resistance groups in Jammu Kashmir (Indian-held Kashmir) have fought Indian rule to demand independence or unification with Pakistan.
