Ramjas College Protests: DU students approach Delhi HC in a PIL against Delhi police

In the light of the recent protests and the violence that followed at Ramjas College, two law students of Delhi University have filed a public interest litigation petition in the Delhi High Court seeking action against the policemen who allegedly assaulted students during the protests..The PIL has been filed by Campus Law Centre students Tarun Narang and Deepak Joshi seeking the formation of an independent committee of senior Delhi Police officials to look into the events that transpired in the college campus in the past week..The trouble started when the Ramjas College literary society invited controversial JNU students, Umar Khalid and Shehla Rashid, to speak at a seminar titled “Cultures of Protest”. The society was forced to call off the seminar after heated protests from the college student union and the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) members..On February 22, students led by the All India Students Association (AISA) sent out a call for protest against the cancellation of the seminar. Before the march could begin, a clash between the two groups broke out, injuring various teachers, students, and journalists..It was this incident, which triggered the filing of the PIL by Narang and Joshi “for the benefit of those innocent female students and press reporters who were thrashed and assaulted by the Delhi Police.”.The petitioners allege that the Delhi Police officials used excessive force and lathi charged Delhi University students. Female students were manhandled, punched, slapped and their modesty outraged. The petition states,.“Police officials caught the female students in a very objectionable manner and insulted them. Not only this, they torned [sic] the clothes of the female students and police [sic] reporters. The video annexed with the petition clearly show how the police officials outrage the modesty of the females by caught [sic] them badly through touching their private parts and distorted their face.”.The petitioners have left no scope for shifting the blame between authorities by filing the PIL against the Union of India, Ministry of Home Affairs, Commissioner of Delhi Police, Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Human Resource Development, National Commission for Women, Delhi Commission for Women, National Human Rights Commission, Registrar of Delhi University and even the Lieutenant Governor of Delhi..The matter is expected to come up for hearing this week..Image taken from here.