Empty Jamia libraries speak volumes about police crackdown

Shards of broken glass, blood stains on stairs, and unclaimed notes and footwear.

The two libraries of Jamia Millia Islamia depicted the police crackdown on students, a day after policemen barged into the university campus in search of protesters who had set on fire public vehicles and indulged in violence nearby. The police action has been widely condemned.

"These scenes will forever haunt me whenever I will enter the libraries of Jamia Millia Islamia," said a student, one of the victims of the police high-handedness.

Flower-pots and broken glasses littered the entrance of Dr Zakir Hussain Library on Monday.

"We had run into the library to save ourselves when police barged into the campus. After entering through the main door of the library, we closed it and placed tables in front of it to stop police from entering. But they smashed the glass of the door, climbed through it and came inside," another student, requesting anonymity, said.

Inside the library, empty tear-gas shells lay ...