Fresh turmoil gripped New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) as ABVP accused a massive 400-member Leftist mob—largely comprising outsiders—of unleashing hellish violence Monday night. Stone barrages and rod beatings sent 12-14 students to Safdarjung Hospital’s emergency unit in critical condition.
Media coordinator Vijay Jaiswal narrated the premeditated horror striking at 3 a.m. A Left faction, protesting restrictions for days, advanced from Sabarmati T-Point to the Vice Chancellor’s gate. In the school precincts, pretenses dropped: masked hordes armed with sticks targeted ABVP, evoking organized mob savagery.
Surveillance footage revealed non-student faces among the overwhelming numbers, fueling alarms over campus breaches. What started as a march morphed into melee, endangering lives.
ABVP’s Prateek Bhardwaj survived a claustrophobic nightmare. Darting floor-to-floor, he sealed himself in a bathroom. Soon, 150 aggressors assaulted the barrier, piercing it to flood the space with noxious extinguisher discharge. His smartphone snaps document the ordeal; security and police wrangling enabled his extraction and hospitalization.
Unit Vice President Manish Chaudhary highlighted procedural lapses: no advance notice for the restriction protest or VC dharna. Boycotted by regulars, agitators sealed areas, harassed innocents, and provoked stone wars to feign oppression. ‘A desperate bid for attention,’ he observed.
JNU’s latest scar underscores the perils of unchecked polarization. Stakeholders must prioritize security audits, outsider vetting, and moderated activism to reclaim the university’s legacy of enlightened debate over destructive strife.