At Afzal Guru Event, Men Threatened To Kill Me, Says ABVP Student Leader

New Delhi: Among the 21 students who have been asked to explain their behavior at an event at Jawaharlal Nehru University or JNU is Saurabh Sharma, who is a student leader of the BJP, the only ABVP member who is part of the students union at JNU. Mr Sharma told NDTV today that he has received a "show-cause notice" from university officials for violating campus rules by blocking a bus on the night of February 9. "The bus was about to leave with people on board who were outsiders; some of them were armed and had warned they would shoot me. I wanted the police to check their ID cards," Mr Sharma told NDTV.

The event and the subsequent arrest of Kanhaiya Kumar, 28, on charges of sedition delivered a controversy with formidable staying power. Video proved the Delhi Police had wrongly announced that Mr Kumar was among those who shouted anti-India slogans at the event that denounced the hanging of Afzal Guru for his role in the attack on parliament in 2001.  

Mr Kumar and others have claimed that those who made seditious remarks were not from JNU.

It was the BJP's student wing, the ABVP, led by Mr Sharma and others who complained to BJP parliamentarian Maheish Girri about the event; he filed the police case that led to Mr Kumar's arrest.

Mr Kumar, who returned to JNU on bail earlier this month with a fiery speech that garnered rave reviews, told NDTV today that the notice sent to him by an inquiry committee of JNU asks him to pay a fine. Two other students- Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya - jailed after him on sedition charges have reportedly been warned they will be suspended for a semester, though a final call will be taken by Vice Chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar and Chief Proctor A Dimri.

Mr Kumar and other students have said that the committee did not allow them to present their version of events; however, university officials say that the students refused to appear, demanding that the panel be reconfigured to include a Dalit faculty member.