On Monday evening, a video surfaced of a seemingly obscure group called the Hindu Raksha Dal claiming responsibility for the violence at Jawaharlal Nehru University on the previous evening.
Sanket Katara, who identifies himself as the legal adviser and spokesperson of the Hindu Raksha Dal, told THE WEEK that the violence that played out on the campus of JNU was the reaction to many days of “anti-national” activities promoted by the students of the university.
“We are a patriotic organisation and have been extremely pained by the anti-national slogans and speeches that have been made by students at Jamia [Millia Islamia], AMU and the JNU over the past month. These universities have promoted violent protests against the NRC and CAA. We have been trying to make them understand for a while now.”
“A month ago, we even protested outside the JNU gates, hoping that the student groups would understand that the manner in which they are functioning is hurtful to patriotic organisations such as ours,” Katara told THE WEEK.
When asked to recount any specific speech or slogan from students that he had found to be offensive over the last month, Katara mentions one from AMU. “What do chants such as Hindutva ki qabr khudegi AMU ki dharti par (The grave of Hindutva shall be dug on the grounds of AMU) mean? Till when are Hindus expected to put up with all this?” retorted Katara.
Recalling the events of Sunday evening, Katara says that the Delhi unit of the Hindu Raksha Dal was informed of a protest at JNU.
“At 6.45pm, when our people reached JNU, our only aim was to stop protests by anti-national elements. However, violence had already broken out between ABVP and leftist groups. Then some students started chanting anti-India slogans. Humne unke khilaf uchit karyavahi kari (We took appropriate action against them),” he says.
Asked to elaborate on the ‘appropriate action’, Katara says students who were chanting anti-India slogans were beaten up. However, Katara denied that the members of the Hindu Raksha Dal had any stones or rods. “We had not gone with the intention to fight. The violence happened in reaction to what was happening on the spot,” he says. He also denies any knowledge of who the masked attackers were.
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Asked whether the events of the evening could have been avoided, Katara says, “We have a very straight line. Whoever speaks against the nation will be dealt with by us in this manner. We have done it earlier, we will do it again,” he says.
The Hindu Raksha Dal, a seven-year-old organisation, had made news in 2014 for vandalising the office of the Aam Aadmi Party in Kaushambhi following, among other things, Arvind Kejriwal’s questioning of the veracity of the Batla House encounter in 2008.
In his role as legal adviser, Katara, who is not a JNU alumnus, says that if police inquiries find members of the Hindu Raksha Dal guilty, they are ready to face punishment. “But the other side should also be punished. This is a very emotional matter for us,” he told THE WEEK.
