Lawyer arrested for bashing up JNU student leaders in custody

Police on Tuesday night arrested one of the three lawyers caught on camera beating up journalists, students and teachers of Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) at the Patiala House Court complex last week. (See JNU mayhem: lawyers thrash students, scribes)

According to media reports, lawyer Yashpal Singh is being quizzed by cops at Tilak Marg police station in the city.

The development comes hours after the Supreme Court agreed to consider a plea seeking contempt action against three lawyers bragging and boasting that they had beaten up JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar in police lock-up for three hours at the Patiala House Court complex.

Delhi Police Commissioner B S Bassi had also asserted that action will be taken against the lawyers. Despite being summoned many times the lawyers had also failed to present themselves before the Delhi Police.

In the latest notice to them, the two lawyers were asked to join the probe on Monday, which they did not do.

Police had issued summons to lawyers Vikram Singh Chauhan, Yashpal Singh and Om Sharma to join investigation, following which Om Sharma presented himself before them and was arrested. But the two others were yet to appear.

India Today had aired a sting operation done on two of the three advocates on Monday in which they claimed that they had thrashed Kanhaiya Kumar and he wet his pants during the beating.

The lawyers were also seen claiming that there were plans to assault the JNUSU president again in prison.

In the video, the lawyers were seen claiming to have spared Kanhaiya only after they made him raise a specific slogan praising India.

One of the lawyers was seen claiming that he would not sign a bail bond only to land in jail so that he could beat up Kanhaiya again inside the jail premises. He went on to say that they had full support of police during the scuffle at the court premises.

Students return
Meanwhile, five JNU students who have been charged with sedition and resurfaced back on campus after being on a run for over 10 days today said they have nothing to hide and are open to any questioning by the police.

The students - Umar Khalid, Anirban Bhattacharya, JNUSU general secretary Rama Naga, Ashutosh Kumar and Anant Prakash - had gone missing from the campus since 12 February after JNU students' union president Kanhaiya Kumar was arrested on sedition charges for allegedly raising anti-India slogans during a controversial event at the campus. However, they resurfaced back on campus on Sunday night.

Accepting the demand of teachers and students, JNU earlier on Tuesday agreed to add more members to the high-level committee probing the Afzal Guru row even as it said that Kanhaiya Kumar's release and dropping of sedition charge are beyond its control.

The teachers and students had been raising four demands including expansion of the probe panel, disallowing the police on campus and approaching the police seeking Kanhaiya's release and revoking of sedition charges against students.

While the varsity had earlier ruled out changing the composition of the high-level committee saying it had full faith in it, today the vice chancellor M Jagadesh Kumar decided to add two more members to the probe panel.