The Delhi Police have identified JNU students’ union president Aishe Ghosh among other left-leaning activists for interrogation in the January 5 violence, based on videos and images that circulated on social media that day.

Police said that of the nine identified, seven belong to left-leaning student organisations while two are affiliated to right-wing students' body, PTI reported.

Addressing a press conference here on Friday, Delhi deputy commissioner of police Joy Tirkey, who is also heading the special investigation team in the matter, said that he has identified these people on the basis of videos and images.

Besides Ghosh, the police have identified Yogendra Bhardwaj, Chunchun Kumar, Pankaj Mishra, Dolan Samanta, Priya Ranjan, Vikas Patel, Vaskar Vijay and Sucheta Talukdar as people who could be possibly involved in the January 5 incident.

Tirkey said the police have been poring over the registers that record names of those who enter the campus to identify outsiders, adding that they are also interviewing students, teachers and other staff members.

Explaining the chain of events, Tirkey named AISF, AISA, SFI, and DSF (all left-affiliated groups) as those who disrupted a registration process for students. He also said activists from these groups went to Periyar Hostel on the campus and beat up students there on Sunday.

The police have identified Bhardwaj to be the administrator of the Whatsapp group ‘unity against left’ which, he said, was created about the same time violence took place on the campus. The group had 60 members, he said.

The Jawaharlal Nehru students' union (JNUSU) office bearers, who met HRD secretary Amit Khare at the same time the press conference was being held, slammed the police for identifying the activists concerned.

“These are the same students who have been protesting against fee hike for 75 days. They have been protesting so that the poor of this country are able to get higher education, so that this country can progress. The Delhi Police may also arrest us (JNUSU office bearers) who have come for the meeting at MHRD,” JNUSU secretary Satish Chandra Yadav said in a statement.