the event despite denial of permission, saying any talk about country's disintegration cannot be "national". The Delhi Police arrested the JNU Students' Union President Kanhaiya Kumar and Umar Khalid on charges of sedition and criminal conspiracy, under section 124 of the Indian Penal Code dating back to 1860. The arrest soon snowballed into a major political controversy, with several leaders of opposition parties visiting the JNU campus in solidarity with the students protesting against the police crackdown. More than 500 academics from around the world, including JNU alumni, released a statement in support of the students. In a separate statement, over 130 world-leading scholars including Noam Chomsky, Orhan Pamuk and Akeel Bilgrami called it a "shameful act of the Indian government" to invoke sedition laws formulated during colonial times to silence criticism. The crisis was particularly concerning to some scholars studying nationalism. On 25 March 2016, the Google Maps search for 'anti national' led users to JNU campus. Swami Vivekananda Statue The Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi inaugurated 151-inch tall statue of Swami Vivekananda on 151st Jayanti of Jainacharya Shree Vijay Vallabh Surishwer Ji Maharaj and referred as the Statue of Peace whereas the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University Students Union protested outside the JNU campus and raised slogans such as ‘Uninvited Modi Go Back’, ‘Punish the perpetrators of January 5th attack’, ‘Save Public Education’ and ‘Unlock JNU’ among others. In November 2019, the yet-to-be inaugurated statue of Swami Vivekananda in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus was vandalised, with slogans against the BJP painted on the floor around the statue. Students of the university, however, denied their involvement and termed it an act by some miscreants to discredit the JNU Students Union movement against the varsity administration against fee hike and hostel manual. A group of students later wiped off the slogans painted near the statue. Campus Violence 1981 46 days lockdown JNU was shutdown for 46 days by Indian government in 1981 after violence by student unions linked to communist parties. 2000 Army Officers Scuffle In April 2000, two army officers who disturbed an Indo-Pak mushaira at the JNU campus were beaten up by agitated students. The officers were angered by anti-war poems recited by two Pakistani poets and disrupted the . They were enraged at the recited lines of a poem by Urdu poetess, Fahmida Riaz ("It turned out you were just like us") and interpreted