A café owner in McLeodganj, a political activist in Jhansi and a researcher in Thiruvananthapuram are among former and current JNU students who have suddenly received summons from Delhi police for protests and gheraos at the university in 2017 and 2018.

The police have swung into action after dragging their feet on the myriad cases filed by the administration and students during the most tumultuous years on campus in recent memory. They have called the students, quizzed them over the phone about incidents that are now distant memories for many, asked them to appear at Vasant Kunj (North) police station in Delhi, and sent written summons on WhatsApp to some.

Anubhuti Bara — who got her PhD in history in 2020 — now runs a café and a hostel in McLeodganj, Himachal Pradesh. In 2017, she had threatened to jump off JNU’s administrative building if a drastic seat cut was not withdrawn. She was brought down by officials. A three-week blockade of the building by students led to a court order against protests in its vicinity.

“I got a call from a person who identified himself as a police officer and asked me to come to the police station in connection with the protest at the administrative block in 2017,” she told The Telegraph.

“I told him this is not proper. I can’t come for the next two months, and I need to see something in writing. I was not well until recently, and I don’t see the point in opening cases from five years ago and calling us from different places during the pandemic, (all) for student activism for which we were already fined.”

Bara is unsure when she might be summoned in writing, and whether she would have to stand trial in a Delhi court.

Police officers did not respond to queries from this newspaper. A lawyer said that while there may not be a possibility of immediate arrest, the accused students would probably have to go through the legal process for years.

“The calls to students are probably because the police are slow in their work…. There is no question of arrest now, and the students can ask for time from the police or move a court for relief,” advocate Abhik Chimni said.

“There are several steps between being absent when you are summoned and an arrest warrant being issued. However, they will have to go through the process of the Criminal Procedure Code, which can take years.”

Chimni said he had fought around 40 pro-bono cases for JNU students and teachers alone over the last three years.

Satarupa Chakraborty, then an activist of the CPM student arm SFI, was severely injured in an assault by alleged members of the RSS-backed ABVP after the students’ union polls of 2018. She was finally called to testify before a magistrate last month.

“When the perpetrators of the violence were around, no action was taken. Now, even the police clearly do not know where they are,” she said.

The police have called Chakraborty — now on the verge of submitting her PhD thesis in philosophy — in another case relating to her presence at a protest during which CCTVs were removed from inside a hostel in 2017. She was general secretary of the students’ union at the time.

“I was fined by the JNU administration and challenged the decision in high court. How many times will we be punished for the same cases?” she said.

Amal P.P. — then students’ union vice-president and now completing the field work for PhD in Thiruvananthapuram — too has received a summons in the CCTV case.

“I told the officer who called me that I needed time to come, but he still sent the summons. I have emailed the station house officer but have not got a reply. A proctorial inquiry acquitted me in the CCTV case, yet I was named in the FIR,” he said.

Dileep Yadav, now a Samajwadi Party activist in Jhansi , also received a call that said he would be summoned in the CCTV case. “We know we are being targeted for our activism, and I’m being harassed because my party is on the verge of defeating the BJP here,” he said.

Others whom the police are looking to question include former students’ union president Mohit Pandey, now a part of Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi’s team in Uttar Pradesh, and CPI general secretary D. Raja’s daughter Aparajitha.