'RSS volunteers also manhandled protesting students'

 RSS men were also involved in the assault in which Delhi Police manhandled protesting students in front of the RSS headquarters on Saturday afternoon, alleged one of the protesters.

Kanhaiya Kumar, president of the JawaharLal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) claimed four or five RSS people who were standing in front of the gates of the building started shouting at the protesters the moment they saw them.

“RSS office mein protest karne aaye ho, hum batate hai tumhe kaise protest hota hai,”one of them said, threatening to “teach” them how to protest, according to the JNUSU president.

The protesters had gathered in front of the Ambedkar Bhawan at 2pm on Saturday.
As they were moving towards Keshav Kunj, the headquarters of RSS, a police barricade stopped them in their tracks.

“After finding ourselves unable to move ahead, we decided to approach the destination from a different route. We must have been 200, easily outnumbered by the policemen,” Kumar told Deccan Herald.

As the protesters reached the RSS headquarters, three or four men in plainclothes, who were making a video of the incident, started abusing the students, he said.

“As we shouted slogans about the issue, these men started abusing us, asking how dared we reached at the place, and then started assaulting us. Following which, the policemen wielded batons on us and there was chaos all around,” Kumar said.

He claimed that five students, including a woman, sustained injuries on their heads and shoulders and were taken to the nearby dispensaries for treatment.
He said police didn’t even spare journalists and smashed their cameras on ground.

No plaint registered
According to Kumar, police didn’t register a complaint when the protesters went to police station.

However, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central range) Parmaditya has justified the police action.

“First, the protest was illegal as according to the Supreme Court guidelines, no protest can happen in Delhi outside Jantar Mantar. Second the protesters were very aggressive, as they had already broken a police barrier,” Parmaditya said.

Refuting that any protester was injured, Parmaditya claimed that no lathi was used. He added that five police personnel, including a policewoman sustained injuries in the incident, justifying his claim that the protestors were very ‘aggressive’.