Students protest at CBI HQ for tracing missing JNU scholar

New Delhi, Oct 13 (IANS) Hundreds of students from JNU and Jamia Milia Islamia on Friday held a protest at the CBI headquarters here to demand that the agency trace Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) scholar Najeeb Ahmed, who went missing nearly a year ago.

Raising slogans of "We are Najeeb" and "Najeeb ko dhoond ke lao", the protesters were also involved in a brief scuffle with police when they tried to get past the barricades at the protest scene.

Ahmed has been missing since October 14-15 night last year after he was allegedly beaten up by Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad supporters at his hostel on the JNU campus.

After the CBI took over the case, it announced a reward of Rs 10 lakh for clues to his whereabouts.

A student leader told IANS that the protest is merely symbolic to press the judiciary to keep the anguish of the relatives of Ahmed in mind when it hears the case due to come before it on October 16.

"With this protest we just want to remind the authorities that we won't let them go easily and will hold them accountable... We want the judge to think of all of us who are in support of Najeeb when he reads about it in the newspapers before he takes his seat in the court," National Students' Union of India leader Sunny Dhiman told IANS.

Among the protesters were Ahmed's mother, sister and his cousin Mujeeb who said that though he completed his Masters in 2015 and planned to study further, he is left with no mental peace to do any of that now.

"I thought of doing Ph.D but I cannot concentrate anymore. The mood in the house is always bleak, very hard to concentrate," Mujeeb told IANS.

He said the CBI has given them no respite since the case was transferred to them in May and the only thing they have got from the central probe agency is "words of consolation".

The family refused to move from the spot outside the CBI headquarter till they meet senior officials.