The arrest of JNU Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar for sedition, and its accompanying fallout is now descending into a tragicomic farce. The tragic happened on Monday when BJP party men and lawyers attacked JNU students at the Patiala House courts, reportedly with the police standing by. The comic happened on Saturday when seven students belonging to a theatre group were detained and interrogated in New Delhi, allegedly because they “looked like” JNU students. They were taken to the Parliament Street Police Station and let off later in batches. More than the alleged charges of abetting terrorists, the degeneration of the Delhi Police into a partisan body bodes ill for the future.

A student from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) is led away from the Patiala House court, where Kanhaiya Kumar was to appear, after violence broke out. Pic/AFP