Jamaat-e-Islami Hind condemns police crackdown on JNU students

Jamaat-e-Islami Hind condemns police crackdown on JNU students

New Delhi:   Jamaat-e-Islami Hind (JIH) has condemned the crackdown on the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University by the Delhi Police and CRPF.

In a press note issued today to the media, JIH Vice President Muhammad Salim Engineer said: “We condemn the lathi-charge by Delhi police and CRPF on protesting students of JNU. There are reports of many injured students and even journalists who were covering the protest. In a democratic setup, such use of excessive force against the student community is quite deplorable. We feel that the students’ demand for rollback of their hostel fees, which has been hiked 1000%, is genuine and the JNU administration and HRD Ministry must accept it.”

Commenting on the role of the government in education, Salim Engineer asserted: “The government must provide world-class education at an affordable cost to all sections of society. The government is trying to escape from its responsibility and passing the burden on students. This will deprive the poor and deserving students of education and the nation will suffer. We reiterate our earlier demand that the government must increase its minimum allocation for education to be 6% of the GDP. Our youth is our strength and we must nurture and take good care of them.”

Salim Engineer also advised the police and administration to observe restraint while dealing with students with regard to their demands pertaining to education and asked students to be peaceful and not to take the law in their own hands.