JNU professor fights back after students damage his car for honouring Sukma attack and Kupwara encounter martyrs

The Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) in Delhi and some of its students are in the middle of a controversy once again, this time for allegedly vandalising the car of a professor who had hosted a tribute to the martyrs of the Sukma attack in Chhattisgarh and Kupwara encounter in Jammu and Kashmir. JNU has earned quite some disrepute for itself with similar controversies, like the time its students burnt an effigy of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. 

This time it is Assistant Professor Buddha Singh, who teaches computer science at the prestigious university, who has been targeted. According to a police complaint lodged at Vasant Kunj police station in New Delhi on Saturday, April 29, Singh — a PhD in computer science from JNU itself — has said his car was vandalised in the intervening night of April 28 and 29. 

Singh, who stays on campus at JNU, may have blamed unidentified miscreants in the police FIR — he has not named anyone specifically in the complaint — but he has since spoken up and blamed a section of students from the JNU for this incident.

He has also said his car was vandalised because he had organised a condolence meeting to pay tribute to the 25 CRPF jawans who had been martyred in a Naxal attack in the Sukma sistrict of Chhattisgarh and the three Indian Army men who had laid down their lives in the Kupwara encounter in Jammu and Kashmir. 

He also told reporters on Sunday: "Kya JNU mein students ko batana padega ki shaheed jawanon ke prati samvedana honi chahiye? Yeh desh ke har nagrik ka kartavya hai. [Do JNU students need to be told that there should be sympathy towards martyred jawans? It is the duty of every Indian citizen.]"

The incident has also started taking political color, with BJP leader Shazia Ilmi telling a news channel that she was "appalled at the silence of human rights activists and Leftists," on the issue. 

See Singh's tweet about the incident here: