Masked assailants on Sunday stormed India’s Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in New Delhi in a violent attack on students that risked escalating protests against Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.
Members of students groups allegedly affiliated with Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party attacked hostels in the university with rods and batons, injuring dozens of students and some professors, All India Students’ Association president N. Sai Balaji said.
As video clips and photographs of the attacks spread on social media, groups of students in Mumbai, Kolkata, Pune, Hyderabad and Uttar Pradesh gathered to protest the violence, NDTV reported.
Bharatiya Janata Party student union Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad general-secretary Nidhi Tripathi in a tweet blamed leftist students’ unions for the attack.
The attack at India’s second-highest ranked university could worsen weeks of tensions between the government and students, who have taken to the streets to protest India’s plans to implement a religion-based citizenship law and a citizens’ registry, which protesters say contravenes the nation’s secular constitution and discriminates against Muslims.
Swaraj India party president Yogendra Yadav, who was injured in the violence, tweeted that police took no action to stop the attacks.
“This attack is bound to galvanize a growing protest movement that has already been motivated by earlier violent assaults against students, including another attack at JNU,” Washington-based Wilson Center senior associate for South Asia Michael Kugelman said. “The takeaway here is that tensions between students and their government will intensify, and with no off-ramps in sight.”
Indian Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah ordered a probe into the JNU attacks.
The JNU attack was condemned by Indian Minister of External Affairs Subrahmanyam Jaishankar and Minister of Finance Nirmala Sitharaman, both alumni of the university.
The strong condemnations are important “given that the government has maintained a radio silence about the toll that the violence has taken on peaceful protesters,” Kugelman said. “This certainly doesn’t indicate any forthcoming course correction at the top, but at the least it may signify a recognition from senior officials of the troubling trend lines in India today.”
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