Demanding a judicial probe into the incident and strict action, he said the police entered the campus and brutally beaten and thrashed outstation students, the action will adversely affect the thousands of Kashmiri students studying outside the State as it will create a sense of insecurity among them.
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Apart from that, India’s Home Minister Rajnath Singh and Human Resource Development Minister Smriti Irani spoke to Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and asked her to ensure the safety of students from outside the state. As it often happens, many Kashmiris celebrated India’s defeat against West Indies in T20 World Cup late on Thursday night.
Srinagar police have registered a case accusing unnamed students of rioting and endangering the lives of others, and released videos purporting to show student vandalism on the campus. “A group of NIT students, all of them non-locals, marched to the gates of the institute shouting slogans”, a police officer said. “We have put in place all the measures”, the deputy chief minister Nirmal Singh had said on Tuesday.
Some non-local students attempted to leave the campus and return to their home states, saying, they were “not feeling safe” inside the campus, a police official said.
“The institute has agreed to accept some of the demands set by the protesting students”, an NIT official told Mirror.
On Monday evening, around 500 non-local students raised the slogan “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” and carried the tricolour, when police prevented them from moving out of the campus and stage a protest on the road. Local Kashmiri students are threatening outstation students of rape and molestation. “If anything, we have been generous with them”, a faculty member said.
Hundreds of non-local students alleged that the state police kicked and punched them when they tried to walk out of the institute premises. “We want to assure students’ parents that we are as much concerned as they are”, the Minister said. “They have to resign”, the student leader said. Police sources said at least a dozen students were injured.
Education Minister Naeem Akhtar said that a magisterial inquiry has been ordered into the incident and the report would be submitted within two weeks. Police alleged that the students attacked cops with stones.
“When we were going out of the campus as per the past practice, police did not allow us and resorted to cane-charge resulting in injuries to several students”, he claimed.
Singh said that a team of HRD was in town and concerns of students with regard to ‘academics and administration shall be addressed’.
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The NIT entrance gate in Srinagar on Wednesday.
