It all started on 9 February 2016, students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) held a protest on their campus against the capital punishment meted out to the 2001 Indian Parliament attack convict Afzal Guru and Kashmiri separatist Maqbool Bhat. 
The issue involves three student groups of the Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi. The Democratic Students Union (DSU) of the asked for the permission of the university to stage the protest within the campus and it was granted. Just before the commencement of the event, the permission was withdrawn by the university authorities themselves. This was due to the strong disagreement posed by the students of the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) students of the same university. 
The event saw a lot of clashes among the students and after investigation, the police came to know that people from outside the university were also involved in the night's mayhem. Reportedly, the outsiders came up with anti-India slogans that would get a person arrested for sedition.
Four days after the event, Khanaiya Kumar, the university's student union president and leader of the All India Student's Federation of the university was arrested for sedition. Shortly, Umar Khalid and Anirban Bhattacharya turn themselves into the police for questioning.
The issue turned into a fight between the left wing and right wings forces as political parties get involved and absolutely no comments from the then ruling party Prime Minister Mr.Narendra Modi. The arrests drew heavy criticism from many sections of society, on the grounds that the Bharatiya Janata Party government was attempting to silence political dissent.
On 3 March 2016, Kanhaiya Kumar gave a speech to a packed auditorium in the JNU campus, during which he said he was seeking, not freedom from India, but freedom within India. He urged his supporters to keep raising the slogans of azadi (freedom). The speech won accolades from the leaders of non-BJP parties as well as independent commentators. Shashi Tharoor, who is an Mp from the Indian National Congress commented that it turned Kumar into a "nationwide political star," and congratulated BJP for creating his phenomenon.