Ruckus at Indian court hearing student sedition case

The protesting lawyers, who had beaten up reporters at an earlier hearing, returned chanting nationalist slogans

NEW DELHI,: A bail hearing for an Indian student leader arrested for sedition descended into chaos on Wednesday as protesting lawyers chanting pro-government slogans barged into a courthouse compound.

Kanhaiya Kumar, head of the student union at a university in Delhi, was rushed from a car into the court by police who protected him with a riot shield, television pictures showed.



The protesting lawyers, who had beaten up reporters at an earlier hearing into the case on Monday, returned chanting nationalist slogans and waving the Indian flag. Stones were thrown at reporters outside the compound.

Kumar, the 28-year-old leader of the student union at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), faces trial over his role in a protest last week that Prime Minister Narendra Modi's backers have branded as "anti-national".



The case has triggered huge controversy, with Delhi's police chief facing accusations of taking political orders by cracking down on the JNU students and of failing to investigate thuggish behaviour by Hindu nationalists loyal to Modi.