The shutdown has been called by separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Muhammad Yasin Malik and others in protest against alleged harassment of Kashmiri students in educational and professional institutions outside the valley.
Escalating the ongoing tension, Kashmir valley today witnessed a complete shutdown on the issue of attacks on Kashmiri students outside the state.
Shops, public transport, other business establishments and educational institutions remained closed. The shutdown has been called by separatist leaders Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, Muhammad Yasin Malik and others in protest against alleged harassment of Kashmiri students in educational and professional institutions outside the valley.
Authorities placed Geelani and Mirwaiz under house arrest in Srinagar while Malik was taken into preventive custody and lodged in a local police station two days ahead of shutdown call.
The crisis situation emerged after the recent controversy at National Institute of Technology, Srinagar.
Tension gripped the campus since April 4, when clashes had occurred at NIT following Team India’s defeat against West Indies in the World Cup T20 semi-final. Two groups of students, one from Kashmir and another from other states, fought with each other after some students burst crackers following India’s defeat. The clashes led to shutting down of the institute.
Amidst the unrest on NIT campus, outstation students had demanded that academic activities in the institute, including the exams, be deferred until normalcy returns.
The outstation students, including girls, who have been staging protests, claimed that officials of the college and HRD Ministry said the demand was non-negotiable.
The authorities have rejected the demand of the non-local students to shift the NIT out of the Valley.
