Tuesday, May 31, 2011

JNU students, alumnus prevent another Nirupama Pathak

New Delhi, Jan 6: Janta ki aave paltaniya, hilela jhakjhor ee duniya (The platoon of the people is coming, it violently shakes the world) sang the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), accompanied by beats of a daflu, in front of Jharkhand Bhawan.

Their comrade Shruti Tiwari, a first year MA Spanish student, didn’t turn up for registration for the spring semester after the winter vacations. Tiwari, from Ranchi, had married Kaushal Kishore Thakur in August last, in Delhi.

Thakur, a Ph. D researcher at English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad, is also from Ranchi. Their marriage was solemnized at a temple followed by a registration in court. Tiwari’s parents had no knowledge of their union.

From friends and her roommate, students got to know yesterday that her brother had leaked the news to her parents. The parents then confined her at home and began threatening Thakur’s family. Though a complaint was registered with the Ranchi police, no action was taken.

The All India Students Association, JNU, contacted Mukesh Kumar, additional district magistrate of Chaibasa, who coaxed the cops to act. In Delhi today, more than 60 students came to see Jharkhand’s resident commissioner Rajiv Kumar.

Kumar called up the state’s DGP, who said that the police had visited the girl today. She would be sent back to Delhi before January 10th, the last day for registration for the semester. The commissioner then helped them prepare a memorandum, which he accepted.

It’s apparently a happy ending for the couple. But students say they won’t rest till Tiwari’s back. They marched away into the sunset, tapping the daflu and raising slogans against khap panchayats.

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