Day after the Jamia Coordination Committee tweeted a video of security personnel entering the first floor reading hall of the MA/MPhil section of the Jamia Milia Islamia University on the night of December 15, 2019, and brutally beating students, police appear to have gone into damage control mode. In a desperate bid to reclaim control over the narrative and perhaps even offer a shameless justification of violence, police have now released their own video of what transpired in the library.
This new video shows alleged ‘rioters’ entering the library with stones in their hands. The video was accessed by India Today from the Delhi Police Crime Branch. Police claim that the people in the video are ‘rioters’ who took refuge in the library to escape the police crackdown. The video may be viewed here:
What happened in #Jamia on December 15? India Today accesses the #exclusive video. @arvindojha’s report.
LIVE https://t.co/4fqxBVUizL pic.twitter.com/qrsTsFuDw3— India Today (@IndiaToday) February 16, 2020
A few young men can be seen in the video entering a room, one after the other. One of them, a long-haired young man, appears to be holding something in his hand that the police claim is a stone. There are about 10 to 15 people in the video who immediately barricade the door to the library using a desk.
This new video comes just a day after the Jamia Coordination Committee released the following video:
Exclusive CCTV Footage of Police Brutality in Old Reading Hall, First floor-M.A/M.Phill Section on
15/12/2019
Shame on you @DelhiPolice @ndtvindia @ttindia @tehseenp @RanaAyyub @Mdzeeshanayyub @ReallySwara @ANI @CNN @ReutersIndia @AltNews @BBCHindi @the_hindu @TheQuint @BDUTT pic.twitter.com/q2Z9Xq7lxv— Jamia Coordination Committee (@Jamia_JCC) February 15, 2020
This video clearly shows security personnel repeatedly beating students who are sitting quietly and studying. Police personnel can be seen raining lathi blows on these students, who do not engage in any counter attack, but meekly try to defend themselves by holding up their hands to avoid blows to the head.
But just when the Delhi Police thought it had won the video war, another longer video of the CCTV footage emerged. Maktoob Media released the following extended footage of the same CCTV camera that the police had used to show ‘rioters’ had entered the library. This video shows that when helpless and unarmed students tried to exit the library police beat them up brutally. The version released by the police had cleverly omitted this extended part of the footage. The video may be viewed here:
The counter strategy applied by the police of releasing one video to invalidate another, appears to have backfired. When they tried to defend their actions, the new video clearly shows there is no justification for the violence against students.
Related:
Video shows Delhi Police assaulting students in Jamia library