JNU orders proctorial inquiry into Kaveri hostel violence

V-C promises impartial probe; students blame incident on ‘administrative callousness’

A proctorial inquiry has been ordered into the violence that broke out at Kaveri hostel in Jawaharlal Nehru University on Sunday.

JNU Vice-Chancellor Santishree Dhulipudi Pandit made this announcement on Wednesday while assuring the students that it will be an impartial inquiry.

Ms. Pandit said according to reports that she has received there were two versions to the incident — one suggests that it started over a havan being conducted at Kaveri hostel on the occasion of Ram Navami and the other points to a protest by students over the issue of non-veg food not being served at the mess. “We will speak to all the students involved and conduct a thorough probe. We need to understand what triggered the issue and in the future ensure that such violence does not take place on the campus,” Ms. Pandit said.

The Vice-Chancellor added that JNU was a free university where every individual’s choices are respected. “Young people have opinions and we appreciate diversity and dissent, but let’s not engage in violence. After taking over, I have met students and faculty affiliated to different ideologies. For me, they are students and faculty of JNU who will make it one of the best universities in the world,” Ms. Pandit said. She added that there was a need to correct the public perception that students of JNU are “anti-national” as that was not the case.

Earlier in the day, members of the JNU Students’ Union met the Vice-Chancellor and reiterated their demand for a judicial inquiry. JNUSU president Aishe Ghosh said the union was told that all students who wish to submit their testimonies and evidence will be invited for the same, so that all the versions can be investigated.

In a statement released by the Kaveri hostel and mess committee, which is a democratically elected student-run body, the students said that the events that transpired at the hostel on Ram Navami were a “disappointing consequence of administrative callousness, suppression and politicisation of the right to choice of food”.

It added that a matter internal to Kaveri hostel blew out of proportion due to the false claims of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad. The students said the ABVP has not been able to produce any evidence that any organisation or hostel committee had objected to the Ram Navami puja in any manner.