New Delhi, Feb 18: Vikram Singh Chauhan, the lawyer who led the attack on journalists and students Monday and was in the group that assaulted JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar at the Patiala House Courts Wednesday, used Facebook to mobilise support for the attacks.
Chauhan’s Facebook timeline shows nine posts between February 11 and 15 in which he is urging lawyers to reach the court well in time to “demonstrate patriotism” and “teach the traitors a lesson”. While a couple of these posts talk of taking the legal course, they also call for direct action or “face-to-face fight”.
He posted several photographs to show his links to the BJP — he is seen with several party leaders, from Rajnath Singh to J P Nadda to Kailash Vijayvargiya — and calls himself a “worker of BJP”. In other photographs, he is at an ABVP event in Delhi University last September on the eve of elections to the students’ union.
On February 11, Chauhan made his first post on the JNU issue. Referring to JNU student Umar Khalid and others who allegedly shouted pro-Pakistan slogans, it said “time has come to send these people back to their country”. The post mentioned “legal means” to mete out justice, but also urged those who have “so far demonstrated their patriotism on social media” to get ready because “time was ripe for a face-to-face fight to teach the traitors” a lesson. He concluded the post by asking people “interested in this noble cause” to contact him.
In a second post on February 11, he announced that Kanhaiya could be brought to the Patiala House Courts. He reminded lawyers that they “have shown their strength from time to time” and “hopefully will take good care” this time. The post ended with a vow to “eliminate every Afzal Guru born”.
The next post on February 12 featured four photos of Chauhan participating in a rally organised by “nationalist students”. Chauhan said the rally sent a clear message to “anti-national forces” that “patriotic youth” were “ready to make any sacrifice” for the country.
