Rahul Gandhi on Thursday mounted attack on the Bharatiya Janata Party-Peoples Democratic Party (BJP-PDP) government in Jammu and Kashmir, accusing it of using “brute” force against NIT students in Srinagar.
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The official said the situation in the campus was calm and no untoward incident was reported during the night.
Tension started brewing inside the NIT campus, located on the banks of famous Dal Lake last week after India lost to West Indies in semi-final in the World T20 Cup prompting some local students to rejoice and burst crackers.
The stand-off in the National Institute of Technology (NIT) here continued on Thursday with non-local students staying away from classes.
In a bid to protest the alleged police action that was unleashed on outstation students at NIT, Srinagar, several organisations including JKNPP, JPPF and Sri Ram Sena called for a strike in Jammu on 7 April.
Akhtar said a senior police officer is monitoring the situation and normalcy would be restored on the campus soon.
The lawyers also held a protest outside the Jammu and Kashmir High Court, demanding action against the police officials for allegedly manhandling the outstation students of the institute.
As per sources, if this fails, students are also planning an explosive press conference on Pratyusha Banerjee’s suicide, like Rakhi Sawant, to attract national media to Srinagar.
Singh, who along with minister of state (MoS) education Priya Sethi, talked to Mehbooba, DGP K Rajendra and NIT director, said “all measures are being taken by the administration of the NIT to instill confidence among these students and the issues raised by them are being resolved”.
Although clashes are rare, Kashmiri and non-Kashmiri students often find themselves pitted against each other on a campus that has emerged as a microcosm of Indo-Pak hostilities.
The police resorted to lathi charge to disperse the group and five students were injured during the action, sparking outrage across the nation.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh, campaigning in West Bengal for assembly polls, said he had spoken to Mehbooba who gave an assurance that all students are safe and she would enquire how the incident happened and fix responsibility. They said that they should be allowed to hoist the Indian tricolour in the campus.
“The state government should immediately arrest all those local students and NIT staff and faculty who threatened students from other states”, he said. “We will not discuss anything in the campus even HRD minister”, the students said in a letter to the HRD Ministry.
Irani said the government has also made arrangements after “some students said they want to go home”. A grainy photo shows almost half dozen cops waving batons on two students, one of them lying on the ground.
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“We will resolve this issue at the earliest”, Singh said.
