JNU violence: Delhi Police questions a suspect, another says did not receive summons

The Delhi Police's Crime Branch on Wednesday questioned one more suspect in the January 5 violence on the JNU campus, while another suspect who was also summoned said he did not receive any communication asking him to appear.

JNU student Dolan Samanta and alumnus Chunchun Kumar among nine suspects named by the police in connection with the violence that had left at least 35 people injured were called for questioning on Wednesday, the police said. While Samanta appeared before the police, Kumar claimed he did not receive any message or mail in this regard, otherwise he would have made himself available for questioning. He said he was in Delhi.

Five suspects have already been questioned by the police. Samanta said she was quizzed for over two hours at the varsity's administration block, during which she also submitted a written statement to the police.

"They asked me questions like  where the video is from (a grab from which was shown in a police press conference last week). They showed me a video of Sabarmati Hostel where the attack happened and I helped them identify some of those who were involved. I was in Sabarmati when the attack happened and I was also injured," she told PTI.

The Delhi Police had conducted a press conference on January 10 during which it released pictures of the nine suspects and claimed JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh was one of them. After her questioning, Samanta said she has submitted a two-page statement to the police which includes her complaint and her whereabouts on January 3,4 and 5.

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"They said I could be called again. I have agreed and I have signed a bond stating that I will come whenever I am called," she said. Besides Samanta, Kumar and Ghosh, Sucheta Talukdar, Priya Ranjan, Vhaskar Vijay Mech, and Pankaj Mishra have been named as suspects.

Vikas Patel and Yogendra Bharadwaj from the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) are also among the nine suspects. The police have already questioned Talukdar, Ranjan, Ghosh, Mishra and Mech. On Wednesday, a team of Forensic Science Laboratory also visited the campus to retrieve data from the server room, a senior police official said.

He said efforts are being made to trace Akshat Awasthi, Rohit Shah and Komal Sharma, who are absconding. Awasthi and Shah, both first-year students of JNU, had featured in a sting operation conducted by a TV news channel. The police had identified Komal Sharma, a student of Delhi University's Daulat Ram College, as the masked woman who was seen in several videos of violence shared on social media. She was wearing a chequered shirt, a light blue scarf and was carrying a stick.

Her phone was switched off since Saturday night. When police had contacted Awasthi and Shah, they said they will join the probe but their phones were later switched off. Thirty-five people, including students and faculty, were injured on January 5 when a masked mob entered the campus and attacked them with rods and sledgehammers.

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