New Delhi, March 16: Ram Krishna and his many friends, who had traveled all the way from Begusarai in Bihar, had only one aim.
They wanted to hear JNUSU president Kanhaiya Kumar’s speech and meet him once.
Ram Krishna and the 100-odd student, from Kumar’s village in Bihar, participated in the march held in solidarity with JNU students Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya Tuesday.
“The youth in our village are quite angry. How can anyone be termed anti-national just like that? Nobody in Begusarai believes Kanhaiya is anti-national. We have come here to tell him that in person,” said Krishna.
Meanwhile, on a day when the judicial custody of Umar and Anirban was extended by two weeks, students from the university again took to the streets, demanding their release and the dropping of sedition charges.
Posters, with smiling photographs of Khalid and Bhattacharya, were stuck on the back of marching protesters’ T-shirts, on police barricades lining Barakhamba Road, and the chai shops at Jantar Mantar. These posters were put up early and stayed for a long time, long after the 1,000-odd protesters had left.
The buses with JNU students arrived just before 4 pm, the protesters tumbling out of them. Police personnel, wearing their protective jackets, lined the road with a long hand-held rope to prevent the protesters from stepping onto the other side of the road. The ‘azaadi’ slogans made famous by Kumar were now taken up by others. Slogans demanding the release of Umar and Anirban were raised.
