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New Delhi: Like Jamia Millia Islamia and Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) before it, IIT Delhi recently called police into the campus while its students held a protest. This has been confirmed by a Delhi Police official, who has said the IIT’s chief security officer wrote to the police on August 25, requesting the deployment of personnel.

A team of uniformed men and several plainclothesmen was thereafter deployed, and one group was especially placed close to the protesting students.

The Wire Hindi has asked IIT Delhi why police were brought to campus during a peaceful protest, but the institute has not yet responded.

The student protest, which started after the death by suicide of MSc Physics student Rishikesh Kumar on August 22, has now been temporarily put on hold, even though not all the students’ demands have been met.

Their demands had included better mental health support for students in the light of eight previous cases of student deaths at the institute over the past 30 months. The students believe these were cases of death by suicide and demand institutional accountability and transparency from IIT Delhi.

Neveretheless, the students decided to postpone their protest at a meeting they held on August 29. This is because an external inquiry committee has been constituted to investigate the circumstances surrounding Rishikesh’s death. The students decided that until this dossier is shared with students, faculty and staff, the protest would be on hold.

Also read: ‘When Will the System Change?’: IIT Delhi Erupts in Protest After Student’s Alleged Suicide

However, the students have made it clear that their struggle would continue on their other demands, especially pertaining to mental health care at the institute.

Not all police wore uniform

The students have strongly objected to the policing and “security” measures implemented during their protest. They say Delhi Police personnel dressed in civil clothes entered the campus to monitor them and indiscriminately recorded their videos.

The response from IIT Delhi’s chief security officer Kapil Kumar, which is seen on a video that is being widely circulated, has him saying that “The IIT administration summoned the police here [to IIT Delhi] for some reason. However, we will enquire with the station house officer [SHO] why the officers were in plainclothes and why they are recording.”

In another video, Kishangarh Police Station SHO Ajay Kumar Yadav refers to an individual in plainclothes as a Delhi Police personnel. According to him, the administration was apprehensive that outsiders might enter the campus and create a nuisance, which is why police was asked to come inside the campus.

Delhi Police officers in plain clothes. Students allege they were filming the protesters. Photos: Screengrab from video, by arrangement.

SHO Yadav told The Wire Hindi, “We were called following the submission of a formal letter. The intention was to ensure that no outsider would cause harm to the protest or to any infrastructure of IIT or to any officer living inside IIT. Therefore, the police were called in as a precautionary measure.”

He said the campus was already equipped with CCTV cameras, making it unnecessary for the police to separately videograph the area. Yadav also said apart from uniformed police, additional personnel in plainclothes were stationed relatively close to the students, as it seemed inappropriate to have uniformed policemen positioned near the protesters.

He also said that one objective of the plainclothesmen was to identify........

© The Wire