Opinion: The Logical Indian Stands With JNU But Not With The Culprits; Sequence Of Events So Far

(As a responsible alternate-media portal, we believe in covering the complete picture of a news and present it with the most rational and genuine opinion. In order to achieve this, we wait for considerable amount of time to observe the developments in the news story and provide our community members an overall perspective on the news. Here we bring you our second detailed coverage on the JNU row. Before you draw conclusions, whom The Logical Indian supports or stands with, we request you to kindly go through the complete article and read The Logical Indian’s opinion at the end.)

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The Logical Indian had covered until the arrest of Kanhaiya in our previous article (Why Would Anyone Raise A Voice in Support Of A Terrorist?)
In this update today, we take you through important developments in the JNU controversy after Kanhaiya’s arrest:

■ Anti- National slogans

The arrests made were based on the video which showed Kanhaiya and others raising anti-national slogans. However, it has emerged that the video has been fabricated and confirmed by forensic experts. Two videos have been examined where it is found that it was ABVP members who had raised the anti-national slogans.

Academicians, experts and a lot of people said student leader was arrested without any evidence on ‘sedition charges’ and questioned the home minister to disclose the basis of the arrest

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■ Twitter goof-up

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh On 14th February issued a statement that the protest by students at JNU had the backing of Hafiz Saeed, who is wanted in India for his role in the Mumbai attacks. However, as confirmed by intelligence and police authorities, the tweet was later found to be from a fake account impersonating Hafeez Saeed. (more details)

The picture of the tweet, that Delhi police used to alert police across India.

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■ Attacks in the court premises

Lawyers had brutally assaulted media persons from Firstpost, Times, NDTV among others. The police were found to be mere spectators to the incident if not facilitating it.

(Image Courtesy: Hindustan Times)

The Bar council of India have apologized for the misbehavior of the members of their fraternity and also have setup a three-member committee which will investigate the incident and submit its report

The NHRC has also squarely blamed Delhi police for colluding with the attackers besides many activists and politicians had termed the attacks as “pre-planned”.

The Logical Indian is appalled by the high-handedness exhibited by the lawyers. It was a sad day for democracy to see people who uphold the law of the land to take the law into their own hands. We appreciate the fact that the Bar Council was quick to condemn the incident.

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■ Resignation of ABVP’s top brass

Three office-bearers of JNU’s unit of Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) resigned on Wednesday in solidarity with the ongoing students’ protests against centre’s handling of the row at the university. In a joint statement, the three leaders said have decided to quit ABVP as they have serious differences over the way the NDA government was handling the issue, adding there is a difference between “interrogation and crushing ideology and branding entire Left as anti-national.”

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■ Supreme Court directs Delhi police to provide adequate security

The Supreme Court (SC) On Friday refused to hear the bail plea of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) student leader Kanhaiya Kumar and asked him to first approach the high court on the issue.
SC had ordered the Delhi Police and the government of India to provide adequate security to Kanhaiya Kumar to peacefully carry out the judicial proceedings in the lower courts and high court.

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■ IIT-Delhi stood with JNU

Various Universities and institutions from India and across the world were quick to condemn the way in which the JNU row has been handled. The latest being the faculty of IIT DELHI who have conveyed their serious concerns over the issue.

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■ Irresponsible role played by the media

The media, as the fourth pillar of democracy who shoulder the responsibility of disseminating verified information was a big let down. The media trial with the use of unverified and misleading information did not help in anyway to shape informed opinions for the masses. It instead whipped up passions and hysteria leading to destructive notions about one of the most celebrated universities of India.

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■ Citizens have to be mindful

Many a times even our fellow citizens fell into the misinformation campaign and thereby preventing them from making an informed and rational opinion on the issue. For instance,

01. Ratan Tata – A fake message which claimed Ratan Tata would not hire from JNU was shared by close to 80 thousand people and ‘liked’ by many multiples more. (Read our detailed coverage)

02. Doctored video of the protest in JNU aired by the media channels, confirmed by forensic experts.(more details)

03. Arrest based on fake tweets from Hafiz Saeed. (more details)

04. Morphed image of Kanhaiya showing a divided India map placed behind him, once again being widely shared on social media, enough raise anti-national sentiments and raise millions of eyebrows.

(Left: The Original Picture | Right: The Morphed Picture)

Please be careful while consuming and sharing stories/information on the social media:

Time and again, The Logical Indian community made an appeal to all the Internet users in India that whatever you come across any news/story especially on social media or messaging platforms such as ‘Whatsapp’, take a moment and put some effort to verify the authenticity of the news so that you don’t become a part of spreading any misinformation. We put all our efforts to verify the news and stories we publish but despite that, we request all of our members to even verify any news and stories we publish at The Logical Indian.

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■ The Logical Indian’s Opinion on the JNU row:

The Logical Indian hopes this issue draws to close sooner than later so that the debates and discussion on media and other platforms could return to more pressing needs and policy matters.

The Logical Indian once again reiterates its condemnation towards the people who had raised the anti-national slogans. We request the government to identify them and take appropriate action. Few students raised anti-national slogans, whether rigged or not, let the investigation unfold the truth. But this doesn’t call for #ShutDownJNU, the society should have called for #ShutDownTheCulprits. The Logical Indian stands with JNU but not with the culprits.

The Logical Indian is appalled by how the media handled the whole issue and how the nation got polarised unnecessarily due to the same.

We request both the media and citizens to be cautious before reaching to a conclusion. Kindly be aware that in the new age of social media, wrong information like photoshopped pics and doctored videos could whip up passions which eventually has the potential for collateral damage. We request all of you to be mindful of the challenges and threats in the information age and, more importantly, stay united and stick together.

Peace and Harmony,
– The Logical Crew