JNU student Umar Khalid praises Hizb commander Burhan Wani

JNU student Umar Khalid, who is out on bail in a sedition case on Sunday kicked off another controversy by comparing Burhan Wani, the Hizbul Mujahideen commander who was gunned down earlier this week, with a revolutionary.

“I don’t care if I fall as long as someone else picks up my gun and keeps on shooting. These were the words of Che Guevara, but could have just been Burhan Wani’s too,” he said in a Facebook post which he removed hours later.

He praised Wani for his bravery and said, “Burhan wasn’t scared of death, he was scared of a life lived in subjugation. He detested it. He lived a free man, died a free man …..”.

Khalid has earlier been a centre of controversy for being one of the organisers of the controversial event in JNU against hanging of Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru during which anti-national slogans were allegedly raised. His remarks on Burhan did not go down well with the RSS student wing ABVP which has been locked in an ideological battle with the left-affiliated groups in JNU campus.

“After supporting Afzal Guru, Khalid has now expressed his sympathies with Burhan, this is an indicative of his association with terrorists and his support for them. Such anti-nationsals are even dangerous for the society than terrorists. I demand that his bail be cancelled and investigation about his links be conducted,” Saurabh Sharma, lone ABVP member in JNU students union said in a statement.