Anand Mangnale, a campaign and media consultant by profession, found a link on one right-wing WhatsApp group named ‘Friends of RSS’ and used it to extract information about the vicious plans the goons were making. It directed him to a group titled ‘Unity Against Left’ where all the devising had almost finished.

He immediately took screenshots of the ongoing scheming and shared their details over calls and messages. But as his own number – previously used for testing the Congress party’s crowdfunding platform’s operations – started being singled out, his adventure was erroneously linked to the Indian National Congress (INC) and several false allegations were levelled against him.

What Happened In JNU?

Violence broke out at Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on the 5th of January as masked goons attacked students, professors, and damaged properties on the campus. Thirty-four students, including Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union (JNUSU) president Aishe Ghosh, were attacked and their head injuries were grievous enough for them to be admitted to the AIIMS Trauma Centre.

The student union has said that the violence was perpetrated by the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), a right-wing student body linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) which is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) ideological parent.

Faces half-covered, the vandals and assaulters whacked students in their hostel rooms as they brandished their weapons of wood and iron. JNUSU President Aishe Ghosh was hit over her eye, with an iron rod. The picture of her severely injured face surfaced online and was shared on every medium.

Anand Mangnale Infiltrates WhatsApp Chats

The attack on the university began at 6 p.m. and an ‘invite link’ to one of the WhatsApp groups that was organising this protest started making the rounds on a few people’s inboxes and social media handles an hour or two later.

A screenshot of the chatroom where Mangnale sent a message asking ‘whether anything was needed to be done at the university’s main gate’, went viral when journalist Barkha Dutt shared his message along with his number.

This message is from a WhatsApp group called ‘Unity Against Left’ – I’ve edited out the group because of privacy laws on showing numbers, but the operative message retained : “main gate par kuch karna hai” against those who “support JNU” #JNUViolence pic.twitter.com/asXyRlfrsK

— barkha dutt (@BDUTT) January 5, 2020

The viral tweet was quickly looked into by people and a simple search on Google showed that his number was linked to a Congress crowdfunding campaign a little more than a year ago.

Anand Mangnale’s number listed in INC’s crowdfunding website.

Mobile number linked to INC on Truecaller App.

However, when The Logical Indian contacted Anand Mangnale he informed that the number displayed was a ‘test number’ that he had used when he had worked with the Indian National Congress (INC) for their crowdfunding campaign last year.

“It was used for testing and was meant to be removed immediately. The number belonged to me but it was a mistake on their part to not remove it from the website after their test”, he said.

Therefore, the tweet by Barkha Dutt that singled out the number ‘70057 50770‘ was being shared rapidly and people were storming Twitter with allegations against the Congress party for orchestrating the attack on JNU.

Who was behind #JNUViolence ? Mystery solved by Barkha Dutt@BDUTT Well Done  Cc- @DelhiPolice @LtGovDelhi For Info-@priyankagandhi @RahulGandhi The Number shown in her tweet belongs to Crowd funding website of Congress.. Your Party. Now smartly website taken down pic.twitter.com/UIlZTbyVex

— Major Surendra Poonia (@MajorPoonia) January 5, 2020

Just googled the number 70057 50770 and it appears to be of @INCIndia come on pappu dont burn the careers of fellow students just for the sake of political gain.Thankyou @BDUTT for exposing these hate mongers.I want @DelhiPolice to take action against congress. #LeftAttacksJNU pic.twitter.com/QMuAytN5nC

— Thebeeinghuman (@thebeeinghuman) January 6, 2020

Congress caught red handed as rioters no.7005750770 linked to Crowd Funding website of Indian National Congress.Lose election and start riots.@HMOIndia arrest Sonia,Rahul Priyanka.

— Yogesh  (@yogashar99) January 6, 2020

But, Why Did Anand Mangnale Join ‘Unity Against Left’

“It was an urgent situation, where this was needed to get whatever information I could & pass on to students to keep them safe. So did it. It might be hasty, but I felt the situation required it”

– Anand Mangnale on Facebook

As per The Logical Indian’s conversation with the person in question, he joined the WhatsApp group in order to uncover the plan of the goons to help students who were in danger.

Anand Mangnale sharing details of the right-winged group. The invite link that became public soon after the attack took place …