In a worrying sign, Kashmiris studying or doing their businesses outside Jammu and Kashmir are being subjected to harassment by police in the wake of recent pro-Afzal Guru protests at the Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi last month, several aggrieved Kashmiris told over phone on Wednesday.
In a fresh case of harassment, a group of Kashmiri students studying in a college in Rajasthan were reportedly detained by police on Monday after being beaten up in the campus over beef-eating rumors.
The students, according to reports, belonged to Mewar University in Chittorgarh Rajasthan where they were beaten up over rumors that they were cooking beef in their hostel room.
Reports said police was called in to stop the attack on the Kashmiri students while some Hindu activists also reached the campus and “raised anti-Kashmir slogans.”
Soon after the incident, police sent the meat being allegedly cooked in the hostel room for forensic tests.
“Some mischief-mongers spread rumours that the Kashmiri students were cooking beef. But prima-facie it didn’t look like beef. We have sent it for forensic testing just to be sure,” Chittorgarh police told media after the furor.
For the past two weeks, several Kashmiri students and businessmen in New Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Kolkata and Bengluru have been reporting that they are being harassed “on one or the other pretext.”
“From last two weeks, we are being questioned everywhere,” a group of students from New Delhi told over phone on Wednesday. “There is no let up in this harassment since the JNU protests.”
A group of Kashmiri businessmen in Kolkata also alleged that they are being “questioned everyday by the police.”
On Tuesday, reports emerged that police in Kolkata has sought details about all Kashmiri students studying there, from various college heads.
A group of Kashmiri students studying in Kolkata said “we are being asked by the college authorities to furnish our complete details. We are being forced to give this information to police. We are living under trauma. Nobody is listening to us that we are here to study, and not fall victims to dirty politics.”
On the other side, parents of these students allege that the J&K Governor-led administration is “indifferent towards the problems faced by our wards in different states of India.”
These parents said there is no option for them than to call their children back. “When our wards are not secure, there is no option for us than to get them back and save their lives and careers. There is a fresh wave of harassment of Kashmiri students in New Delhi and other states for the past three weeks and nobody seems to care.”
Kashmiris continue to be ‘harassed’ outside JK
