New Delhi, August 17: All four former Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) students who were being tried in a case of unlawful assembly, criminal trespass and causing damage to public property outside Bihar Niwas in 1997, were acquitted by a Delhi court today.
Clearing the four accused -- former JNU president Batti Lal Bairwa, Shyama Anand Jha, Abu Zahir Rabbani and Prem Chand -- Additional Sessions Judge Yogesh Khanna said that the four should be given the benefit of doubt in absence of conclusive evidence.
"Since it wasn't proved that the four accused had entered the building, it cannot be said that they had the same aim as those who did enter the building."
The four were part of 2,000 students, teachers and staffers from JNU who had assembled outside the Bihar Niwas in 1997, demanding arrest of the killer of former JNUSU president Chandrasekhar, who was killed in Siwan district of Bihar.
