New Delhi: The Delhi Police has not arrested anyone in connection with the 2020 violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University, the Union home ministry said in parliament today, August 3.On January 5, 2020, a group of masked and armed people wreaked havoc in the university campus – beating up and severely injuring students and teachers, and vandalising property.

Four days after the violence, The Wire had reported that 31 students, two teachers, and two guards suffered major and minor injuries.Union Minister of State for Home Nityanand Rai said the Delhi Police has reported that a Special Investigation Team (SIT) of Crime Branch has been constituted to investigate three cases registered at Vasant Kunj (North) police station with regard to the violence on the JNU campus in January of 2020.Delhi police, however, had spoken of registering four FIRs in the aftermath of the violence.

“The investigation conducted includes examination of witnesses; collection and analysis of footages; and examination of identified suspects. As reported by the Delhi Police, no arrest has been made in these cases,” he said, replying to a written question of Dravida Munnetra Kazhagham member Dayanidhi Maran.

In the aftermath of the violence, police had named students as suspects – seven of whom were members of Left-leaning groups, and two of whom were from the rightwing Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. One of the FIRs registered by Delhi police was against Aishe Ghosh, the JNU Students Union president, who suffered critical head and arm injuries herself.

The home ministry’s admission that no arrests were made comes against the fact that several videos showing the violence and the masked attackers had gone viral since the attack.With the aid of one such video of CCTV footage, several students and independent news website Alt News had identified one of the masked attackers as Delhi University student Komal Sharma. However, Delhi Police told Indian Express that Sharma had said that she was not present on campus on the day.As The Wire had reported on January 5 this year, the police’s investigation did not proceed far in the last year. 

Several questions highlighted by The Wire, on the police’s failure to control the mob, on allegations made by students as to how police ignored the violence on campus and on the representation of events in the FIRs contradicting police’s own earlier version, still remain.