Mohd Aasif | Clarion India
NEW DELHI—Yet another Muslim student of Jamia Millia Islamia and a member of Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC), Asif Iqbal Tanha, has been detained on Sunday on alleged involvement in riots at Jamia on December 15, 2019. He has been sent to 14-day judicial custody in Tihar Jail.
Investigating officer, Manoj Yadav, in his statement accused Asif Iqbal of being one of the instigators.
“Cops from the special cell of Delhi Police appeared at his local residence in Abul Fazal Enclave around 8 pm on May 16 and took him to Lodhi road police station,” said Abul Ala, president of Students of Islamic Organization (SIO), Delhi Unit.
He was later presented before the Metropolitan Magistrate, Archana Beniwal in Saket court. As per the court order, the special cell had demanded his police remand for the purpose of investigation, but the court sent Asif to judicial custody rejecting the demand.
The court ordered the investigation to be carried out at Tihar Jail premises in the presence of a counsel of the accused.
Asif Iqbal Tanha is a final year student of Persian literature at Jamia Millia Islamia. He is also secretary of Jamia unit of SIO. He played an active role in developing a movement against the controversial Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA), 2019. He hails from Jamshedpur district of Jharkhand and belongs to a humble background. He is a brilliant student and an activist.
Amid the ongoing lockdown clamped on the entire country to contain the spread of coronavirus pandemic, it has now become a routine with the Delhi Police to summon anti-CAA activists in the name of questioning before arresting them. More than a dozen students have so far been targeted this way. The common refrain of the all the victims is that the police seized their cell phones to render them incommunicado.
On December 15, 2019, the anti-CAA protestors started a peaceful rally from Jamia Millia Islamia. As the rally was marching towards Parliament Street Delhi Police personnel barricaded roads, surrounded the students and attacked them brutally. The cops stormed into the university campus and vandalised the library and beat up students with canes. Several students sustained serious injuries in the police action. Some of them were to be hospitalised. Asif was among the seriously injured students.
The police crackdown on campus turned the Jamia Millia Islamia, a premier institution of higher learning in the country, an epicenter of the anti-CAA movement in Delhi the echoes of which could be heard across the country. The protesters later formed a Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC). Asif was one of the members of the JCC.
One of his classmates told Clarion India that Asif was summoned in the month of April too, but was spared as he was suffering from fever. “In view of Covid-19, the cops asked him to stay at home,” said Shakeel Ur Rehman, who is also a Jamia student.
Cops took away his phone leaving him disconnected from his family and friends. “He had to obtain a number and a phone to get in touch with his classmates and teachers for studies,” added Shakeel.
The arrest has evoked widespread outrage and condemnation on social media. A twitter trend #ReleaseAsifTanha has been run by the activists. Companions of Peace and Justice have called it an act of political vengeance. “In another act of political vengeance, Delhi Police has arrested Jamia student leader Asif Iqbal Tanha. World will remember that India used this pandemic for political arrests. We stand in solidarity with him & demand his immediate and unconditional release,” reads the twitter handle of CPJ.
Human rights activist, Owais Sultan Khan, termed the arrest a “brazen act of injustice” and demanded his “immediate and unconditional release.”
Akhtarista Ansari, another student of Jamia and one of the colleagues of Asif, tweeted, “I remember last talking to him, he told me that he is distributing food and essentials to poor families in Jamia Nagar. It’s really heartbreaking to see your friends and comrades getting arrested in false cases.”
Lately, during the nationwide lockdown, a special cell of Delhi Police has arrested several protesters of anti-CAA movement from different places of the National Capital. Among them a number of students have been arrested from Jamia Millia Islamia unduly linking them to the northeast Delhi riots.
Among those arrested earlier were Safoora Zargar, a pregnant Ph D scholar, Meeran Haider, Shifa Ur Rehman, president of Alumni Association of Jamia. They all were summoned to the police station for questioning before being arrested.
