It has been 8 years since Najeeb Ahmed, a first-year MSc Biotechnology student, went missing from outside his hostel at Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi after he was attacked by members of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of the Hindutva militant group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).
Initially, his case was investigated by the country’s top agencies, including the Delhi Police, Special Investigation Team, Crime Branch of Delhi Police, and eventually the Central Bureau of Investigation.
The agencies were accused of not conducting a proper investigation and not interrogating the suspected Hindu nationalists.
None of the agencies, however, could find any trace of the missing Najeeb, and even after eight years, his whereabouts remain unknown.
“These agencies failed my aspirations and the idea of justice, but I believe that he is still alive and among us”, said Najeeb Ahmed’s mother Fatima last year.
She has not given up all hope of seeing his son with her own eyes.
“We have reconstructed our house recently because it was an old building, my husband was saying that he would put up a nameplate outside, if Najeeb comes he won’t be able to recognize it as it looks different. Can he forget a place he grew up in? He will come running,” she had asked with a short-lived laugh.
“Every happy event in our life is incomplete without Najeeb, nothing makes us happy. This is life and we have to live, so we are living but without our son,” Nafees said.
Nafees believes that Muslim youths are being disappeared by the state either by jailing them unnecessarily or putting cases on them.
“There are hundreds of Muslim youth jailed without any crime, putting Najeeb will just add to the number. There is no value of a Muslim life in India,” she said.
“My faith keeps me going; otherwise I would have lost it to these vile people. The reason I am still fighting is my faith. I draw strength from it. Allah has a plan and His plan is better than all the plans”, she had said.
Soon after Najeeb Ahmed’s disappearance, there were protests all over the country demanding an investigation and justice. Student communities, organizations, unions, and even politicians of opposition parties participated in the rallies and events.
Over the years, these physical protests decreased and slowly disappeared from the public domain except for the yearly protests on some university campuses including Aligarh Muslim University, Jamia Millia Islamia, JNU, and others.
“The attack that happened against Najeeb and his disappearance after that shows the intolerance and hatred of Sangh Parivar towards the Muslim students who got into central universities for their higher education as a result of the second Mandal Commission,” said Shaheen Ahmed, Fraternity Movement national secretary.
“Najeeb Ahmed continues to be the icon of resistance that represents the struggle of Muslims and other marginalised students in the Indian campuses. Even after 8 years, the judiciary and investigative agencies of the country have failed to answer Fathima Nafees’s search for her son. Neither the accused were produced before the court nor questioned properly to find an answer for Najeeb’s forced disappearance,” he said.
Like every year, the JNU Students’ Union called for a protest marking 8 years since Najeeb Ahmed’s forced disappearance from the campus.
The march will be addressed by Najeeb’s mother at Sabarmati, announced JNUSU.
“8 Years of Enforced Disappearance of Najeeb. We will not stop asking this regime – Where is Najeeb?” read a social media post by Students’ Federation of India (SFI) Jnu unit
“8 years of enforced disappearance of our Najeeb. ABVP, JNU admin, The then VC RSS stooge- Mamidala, Delhi Police, BJP-RSS Govt. all are the culprits of Najeeb.
Sab yaad rakha jayga. JNU will keep fighting until justice is delivered,” said JNUSU vice president Avjit Ghosh.
, the student wing of the Hindutva militant group Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS).){kind=link}