Date:19/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/19/stories/2008111953000300.htm

New Delhi

Jamia complains to EC against BJP advertisement

Staff Reporter

‘Item referring to the university is based on false information’

NEW DELHI: Jamia Millia Islamia has written to the Chief Election Commissioner, N. Gopalaswami, against an advertisement put out by the Bharatiya Janata Party accusing it of spending its funds to “defend” terror suspects.

Jamia Vice-Chancellor Mushirul Hasan in his letter to Mr. Gopalaswami said: “The item referring to Jamia Millia Islamia is based on false information. It is a deliberate distortion of facts. Jamia has not spent a single paisa from its resources on the two students implicated in the Batla House incident.”

The letter has also been sent to two senior officials in the Union Human Resource Development Ministry. In September this year, Jamia had decided to provide legal help to its two students arrested for their alleged connection in the serial blasts in the Capital.

“The source of the legal help is not the taxpayers’ money. It is not the money that we get from the University Grants Commission. We had set up a legal aid committee for the students that launched a relief drive and raised donations. We will be using that money,” said a University spokesperson.