Hindu Raksha Dal claims responsibility for JNU violence, police launch probe

New Delhi

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Bhupendra Singh Tomar, alias Pinki Chowdhary, the head of fringe right-wing roup, Hindu Raksha Dal, on Tuesday claimed that members of his organisation were involved in the brawl inside JNU, which left at least 25 students injured.

A day after a masked mob brutally assaulted JNU students inside the campus, a video was widely ciculatd on social media in which Tomar is seen taking responsibility of the attack. “JNU is a hub of communists and we won’t tolerate this. We have done this (attack) before also and we will do it again. They malign our religion and our country. Their attitude is anti-national,” Tomar says in the roughly two-minute long video.

When asked if he received a call from someone at the university or someone wanted him and his associates at the site, he told HT, “There was nothing special about that day. There was no SOS. We have been there before and we want that day as well.”

Tomar, however, added that he personally was not present at JNU. “Hamare karyakarta they wahan (our workers were there), he claimed.”

Police is yet to comment on the role of Tomar’s outfit in Sunday’s ruckus, which has galnavised students across the country in support of JNU.

Hindu Raksha Dal, a right-wing nationalist outfit based in Ghaziabad, has a history of indulging in violent protests over issues which it considers ‘anti-national.’

Tomar, who is in his late 40s, was the president of the Bajrang Dal’s Ghaziabad unit and worked with the RSS in different capacities for more than a decade before floating the Hindu Raksha Dal in 2013. “When there is a need to fight, we will fight. This is the fundamental difference between our organisation and traditional bodies,” he had told HT in an interview in October 2015.

Till Tuesday night, no separate FIR was registered had been registered in connection with the claims made by Tomar.

“We are investigating to find out if his men were on the campus at the time of the violence,” said Delhi Police spokesperson Mandeep Singh Randhawa.