The masked individuals who brutally attacked both male and female students including teachers inside the Jawaharlal Nehru University campus with wooden and metal rods are yet to be traced and brought to book. Two days have passed since the Sunday attack, and the Delhi police is still clueless despite video footage doing the rounds, holding vital information on the dastardly attack (“Students protest across India after JNU attack”, Jan.7, Gulf Today).

Thousands of students from different universities across states are rallying for justice, holding demonstrations expressing their solidarity with the JNU community. But hardly any progress from either the police or the administrative machinery. The BJP government is up to its old tactics of silencing dissent with an iron hand. This is nothing new. We have seen the devious machinations of the government in power in the past. The puzzling part is the silence or rather the meek response by the Congress Party. All we heard is the Congress interim President Sonia Gandhi saying: “The voice of India’s youth and students is being muzzled every day. The horrifying and unprecedented violence unleashed on India’s young by goons with active abetment of the ruling Modi govt is deplorable and unacceptable.”

We all know it is ‘unacceptable’ but does Congress have any plan to engage with the aggrieved community. Mere words have little meaning.

The Congress has miserably failed and is failing even today in playing the role of a worthy opposition to the ruling government. But it’s still not too late. Wake up Congress. Wake up Rahul.

Vivek Khatri
By email