On 5 January 2020, more than 50 masked people armed with rods, sticks and acid attacked the campus of Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and injured more than 39 students and teachers. Many students received serious injuries. Professors who tried to intervene and protect the students, as well as ambulances carrying injured individuals, were attacked. Eyewitnesses stated that police within the campus did not intervene to stop the mob. After attacking residents of the university campus for three hours, the mob escaped; none of its members was arrested or detained. All 36 students who were injured and admitted to the All India Institute of Medical Sciences, New Delhi (AIIMS) were discharged within 24 hours.
Eyewitnesses, including students injured in the attack, as well as opposition parties and left-wing organizations, accused the members of the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) student wing, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) of orchestrating the attacks. The ABVP, a Hindu nationalist organization, initially denied any involvement and accused left-wing organisations of carrying out the attack. On 6 January, ABVP's joint secretary for Delhi, Anima Sonkar, admitted on television that two armed men seen in videos of the incident were members of ABVP. Although any one clear motive has not emerged, the attack has been described by some as a way to prevent students from raising their voice against a fee hike and the Citizenship Amendment Act.
Police have said that three of the masked attackers have been identified but no arrests have been made, and complaints have been filed as a single FIR (First Information Report) on unknown people. On 15 January, police confirmed the identification of the masked woman, seen in the video recording of the attack, as a member of ABVP. Police have issued a notice to the woman and two other men. According to police all three have switched their phones off and are yet to be located. As of 31 January, 26 days after the attack, the Delhi Police have not arrested any suspects in the attack.
Background
The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) has been associated with student activism for many years. Since December 2019, the Jawaharlal Nehru University Students' Union (JNUSU) had been participating in Citizenship Amendment Act protests. On 13 November, the JNU administration raised the university's hostel fees, with a fee hike of 150%, making it the most expensive Central University in India. Since 28 October 2019, students of the JNU had been protesting against the fee hike. As part of this protest, students boycotted the final semester examinations. After protests, the university partially rolled back the fees increase by reducing the fee only for students from families with extreme poverty (BPL category) who do not have a scholarship. The move did not convince the students, as there was no rollback in the fee hike for non-BPL category students or for BPL students with a scholarship. To press the administration for a complete rollback of the increase in fees, JNUSU had continued the protests. The semester registration with the increased fee was started by 1 January.
Incidents between 1 and 4 January
JNU administration filed two FIRs (First Information Report) on 5 January at 8:39 and 8:43 p.m. against JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh and 19 others. The first FIR was for allegedly attacking JNU security guards and vandalising a server room on 4 January 2020 at 1:00 p.m., a day before the attack on campus. A second FIR was registered based on events that had happened on 1 January. On 10 January, police disclosed the names of those suspects who were involved in the incidents on 4 January. Police announced seven of them were members of left-wing organisations. The names included JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh and two people belonging to ABVP.
Incidents on 5 January
According to a professor, around 50 teachers and 200 students were holding a meeting on the campus to discuss their opposition to the increase in hostel fees when the attack started. The attack has been described by some as a way to prevent students from raising their voice against the fee hike and CAA.