New Delhi: The evidences against the ‘Bharat-ke-tukde-tukde’ gang of the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) which the police have mentioned in their charge sheet could be damning. The proof submitted to the court range from raising anti-India slogans to hiding evidence to forensics nailing the location of protagonists of JNU’s dark, anti-national drama which unfolded from February 2016.

Here is what the charge sheet says the main accused were up to.
 

Kanhaiya Kumar
 

The then JNU students’ union president Kanhaiya Kumar — who has since turned politician and may contest 2019 general elections on a Left ticket from Bihar’s Begusarai — has a lot to explain.

Kumar was identified by a number of witnesses from the February 9, 2016 videos when anti-India slogans had been raised. A section of ultra-Left students were commemorating terrorist Afzal Guru, who was hanged for his role in the Parliament attack. Kumar is seen clearly in the video footage leading students who were raising the anti-national slogans.

Kanhaiya’s complicity in the incident has also been established by scouring his phone records and that of another prime accused and pro-secessionist ultra-Leftist Kashmiri student Umar Khalid.

Findings show that Khalid, the chief organiser of the commemoration event for terrorists, sent two text messages (from his number 8375912704) to Kumar’s phone (9899074030) at 17:12:51 pm and 17:12:58 pm asking him to arrive at Sabarmati Dhaba in JNU as the permission for the event had been cancelled by the administration. The Regional Forensic Science Laboratory (RFSL) has retrieved those SMS messages.

Moreover, Kumar’s cell phone location has been established at the site of the incident.


Umar Khalid
 

Forensic, as well as eyewitness evidence against Khalid too, is compelling. He too has been identified by witnesses in the videos from that evening. The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) found the pamphlets for the commemoration of terrorist Guru from his e-mail ID.

Khalid’s phone location too established that he was present at the venue and time of the incident. His call detail record (CDR) shows him in constant with other primary accused such as Anirban Bhattacharya, Mujeeb, Muneeb, Umair Gul and Kanhaiya Kumar.

He has been identified in video footages raising and supporting anti-national slogans.

Add to this the original permission letter which was applied to the administration which had his name and signature. His name was also mentioned as an organiser on the pamphlet for the event to celebrate slain terrorists.

Khalid also tried to mislead the court and the investigating agencies in their investigation. Forensic study revealed that he had provided fake writing samples to the police obtained in the court. When the fake handwriting was matched with the samples obtained from JNU, the two obviously did not match. “This proves that the accused deliberately tried to disguise [sic] the investigative agency by concealing the natural flow of writing pattern,” the charge sheet surmised.


Anirban Bhattacharya
 

The evidence against Anirban Bhattacharya too is staggering. Apart from being identified in video footages by eyewitnesses, CERT-In experts found the pamphlets for the event from his e-mail Id just as from Khalid’s email account.

Anirban is clearly seen in the videos raising anti-India slogans and his mobile phone location betrays his participation in the event.

According to the police charge sheet, the original pro forma for booking the venue for the event bore his name and signature. Like Khalid’s, his name was mentioned as an organiser on the pamphlets.

Khalid and Bhattacharya had been conspiring for a long time before the incident, according to the charge sheet. “It is clear from these emails that Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya are speaking about ‘Azaadi of Kashmir’ from ‘occupation of India’ well before the programme to commemorate the execution of Afzal Guru,” the charge sheet said.

Meanwhile, based on the slogans and these emails, the charge sheet observed that the two accused were “trying to excite disaffection towards the idea of India and by advocating the terrorist acts committed by Afzal Guru and Maqbool Bhatt by glamourising them by calling them martyrs and freedom fighters of Kashmir”.

The charge sheet also reveals that the accused tried to mislead the investigating agency by denying knowing each other and lying about their locations, but their assertions were demolished by call records which showed them talking to each other on several occasions and ascertainment of their locations and travel paths to JNU by cell phone records.