Times View The media briefing by the police on Friday has raised further questions about the impartiality of the probe. For starters, the police named students even as they maintained that the investigation is at a preliminary stage. If the police have evidence that those they named are indeed guilty, why not arrest or book them? And if they don’t, doesn’t it constitute defamation? Then there’s the fact that the briefing repeatedly harped on the Left affiliation of some of the students named while staying silent about the others (independently identified as ABVP activists). Revelations by a TV channel raise further questions. We hope that by the time the probe is completed, the police will have put to rest all doubts about its credibility.

NEW DELHI: A first-year student of JNU, who claimed to be affiliated to ABVP, admitted to "mobilising men from outside" and leading the attack by masked vigilantes and 20 ABVP members on teachers and students, and vandalising hostels on the evening of January 5, an undercover investigation by India Today has revealed.The student, Akshat Awasthi, said streetlights being switched off just before and during the attack was the work of "police, administration... whose police is it?" The lights were switched off, he said, as that was when "we were mobilising".In the sting operation, Awasthi said that on Sunday he called the "organisational secretary of ABVP", whom he named, but it was beeped out in the telecast. Following their chat, he mobilised Sunday evening's hooliganism, he claimed.All three students interviewed in the investigation were from JNU. Awasthi is pursuing a French degree. The second, Rohit Shah, also asserting allegiance to ABVP, is in the French language course too.Awasthi also identified himself in the footage of the January 5 attack - jeans, jacket and a helmet covering his face and head. He said he could be seen rushing down the hostel corridor, smashing anything that came his way. He boasted that he mobilised the attack in retaliation to an assault allegedly by Left students on Periyar hostel earlier the same day.India Today reported Awasthi also identified both people in the most viral footage of the attack - of a girl with her face covered and the male with a sledgehammer - as fellow ABVP associates. Awasthi said that after the raid, he found a fellow ABVP member hiding. He assured her he was from ABVP, "took off the helmet, put my arm around her, and walked out as a couple".The stick in his hand was pulled out from a flag near Periyar hostel. Asked if he hit anyone, Awasthi said, "There was a man with a flowing beard. He looked Kashmiri. I beat him and kicked down the gate."Security guard GV Thapa told India Today that 10-15 men, in shawls with lathis, forced through Saraswatipuram Gate where he was on duty a little after 7pm on Sunday. "They threatened to beat me and went in," he added.Shah told the undercover reporters that he lent Awasthi the helmet. "It is a must when you smash glass." The mob came to his room too, but moved on after he told them (masked men) "it was an ABVP room." Asked if he was proud of their actions, he said, "Of course, of course."The third student was former JNUSU president of AISA, Geeta Kumari, who admitted to "closing the server room" to cripple the administration's functioning. "There are no exams. None of our demands are met. He (VC Jagadesh Kumar) didn't even meet us. Our VC does everything online, sends 'love letter' online, sends Happy Near Year online, sends warnings/ threats online..."Reacting to the probe, ABVP general secretary Nidhi Tripathi said, "Anyone participating in ABVP or JNUSU events cannot qualify to become members automatically. Akshat Awasthi is neither an office bearer, nor karyakarta of ABVP. Anyone involved in the violence at JNU should be prosecuted. We will fully support police in their investigation."