On 15 December, students of Jamia Millia Islamia held protests against the Citizenship Amendment Act for the third consecutive day. The Delhi Police forced their way into campus and brutally attacked the students, using lathis and tear gas. The police, eyewitnesses told The Caravan, entered the library, the canteen and the mosque, and even attacked students who were not involved in the protests.
Mohammed Minhajuddin, an alumnus of the Aligarh Muslim University and a second-year LLM student at Jamia, was in the library when the police entered. Though he was not involved in the protests, Minhajuddin said, the police still beat him severely. The lathi charge damaged his left eye, costing him his eyesight, and left his right eye vulnerable to infection. In videos of the attack that circulated on social media, Minhajuddin could be seen sitting on the floor of a bathroom in Jamia, clutching his bleeding eye. He has not yet received a copy of the medico-legal report regarding his injuries. On 18 December, Shahid Tantray and Ahan Penkar, the assistant photo editor and a fact checker at The Caravan, respectively, met Minhajuddin . He recounted, in detail, how the police beat him up, and permanently damaged his eye. “There is fear for sure, and difficulty,” he said. “But I will do my best to be brave … I will not lag behind in my work.”
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