The human resource development ministry has endorsed Jamia Millia Islamia university’s demand for a high-level probe into the December 15 police attack on students on the campus and forwarded to the home ministry a report the varsity had sent.

An official in the HRD ministry said the matter involved law and order, so the home ministry was the “appropriate agency” to handle it.

“The HRD ministry has favoured the demand for a high-level probe and the request has been forwarded to the home ministry for the final decision.”

The university had written to the HRD ministry last week with details of the police action after the cops entered the campus without permission from the Jamia authorities.

The ministry had immediately forwarded the varsity’s report to the home ministry, which had not responded till Tuesday evening.

Students of Jamia and Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) were the first to start protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act and the proposed National Register of Citizens on the ground that both the measures discriminated against people on the basis of religion, which the Indian Constitution does not allow.

On December 15, the police had entered the Jamia campus and assaulted students after some unidentified miscreants set ablaze a few public buses about 2km away from the university.

Around 200 students were injured in the police action but the cops are yet to come up with an explanation on why they had entered the campus. Even those studying in the library and those who had stayed put in their hostel room were not spared.

Professor Najma Akhtar, the Jamia vice-chancellor, described the police action as “barbaric” and hoped the government would take appropriate action.

“We wrote to the HRD ministry seeking action. I hope the government will take correct actions. We have filed an FIR also giving details of information,” Akhtar told The Telegraph.

Professor Neshat Quaiser, a former teacher at Jamia, said Delhi police should immediately suspend the police officials who had entered the campus and unleashed the assault on students.

“Any long-term probe has its own purpose. It takes a lot of time…. There must be immediate action against the police officials who entered the campus and beat up the students in a brutal manner. Action against the police officials will check a repeat of such incidents,” Quaiser said.

In a message to students, vice-chancellor Akhtar said the university would provide financial and emotional support to the injured students and their families.

As the library had suffered extensive damage, Akhtar said the university had set up a committee to assess the loss and might ask the HRD ministry to fund the repair after the panel submits its report.

The university is now closed for the winter vacation and will reopen on January 6.

In Uttar Pradesh, too, police had entered the AMU campus on December 15, firing tear gas shells, rubber bullets and stun grenades to break up a “peaceful” student protest against the new citizenship law.

Students and teachers from universities across the globe, such as Harvard and Oxford, had condemned the police action at both Jamia and AMU, iterating that students had the freedom to protest on public issues.