Exclusive: New Video Shows Police Breaking CCTV in Jamia Library
The Quint has the full footage in which it can be clearly seen that students were pleading to go out.
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New footage accessed exclusively by The Quint shows Delhi Police on 15 December 2019 barging in to the library at Jamia Milia Islamia university and attempting to vandalise CCTV cameras.
Students can be seen running out of the building, chased by masked policemen. After a few minutes, the camera is hit by a lathi a couple of times before it stops working.
Another clip shows a cop breaking a table to use a part of it as a stick. Another policeman then attempts to hit a CCTV camera with a lathi before throwing a nearby chair at it, and missing.
A war of words broke out between the Delhi Police and students of Jamia Milia Islamia University on Sunday, 16 February, after the Jamia Coordination Committee (JCC) on Saturday released CCTV footage which they claim is from 15 December 2019 when the Delhi Police had entered their campus after protests against the CAA-NRC turned violent.
Soon after the JCC released the footage, the Delhi Police released a new CCTV footage showing students purportedly entering the Old Reading Hall in the MA/MPhil Department of the university and carrying stones in their hands.
In the footage, the students can be seen barricading the door shut with tables.
However, The Quint has accessed the full CCTV footage which shows students locked up in the reading hall and pleading to go out.
The Delhi Police can be seen entering the hall and throwing tables and chairs away. While the students were locked up, the police can be seen thrashing the students on both the sides of the door.
JCC’s video showed armed policemen entering a hall and thrashing students who were seen studying there.
Meanwhile, the university has denied releasing the CCTV footage and said that JCC is “not an official body.”
On 15 December, several Jamia students from the old reading hall, had shared SOS videos and messages and claimed that the police had entered the room, thrashed students and shelled tear gas on them.
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