Six days after non-Kashmiri students resorted to violent protests against Kashmiri students celebrating India’s defeat against West Indies in the T20 world cup semifinal, a group of non-Kashmiri National Institute of Technology (NIT) students accepted that ‘they resorted to things which were beyond limits (sic).’
Non-Kashmiri students had protested and chanted ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ slogans on Friday, a day after Kashmiri students celebrated India’s defeat in the campus. But on Friday afternoon, last week, the non-Kashmiri group resorted to violence, vandalised NIT property and allegedly attacked Kashmiri students, a teacher and a courier boy. The police had to use action to bring the situation under control, in which many non-Kashmir students sustained minor injuries.
“Things went out of limits, and it should not have happened with such intensity but we felt insecure. And this insecurity was because some Kashmiris had thrown stones at us on Thursday evening. Then we were beaten up by the police. We felt our life was in danger,” a non-Kashmiri student, wishing anonymity, told.
Asked why the Indian flag was hoisted if students felt insecure, another non-local student said that he did not know who raised the flag. “Actually on Friday we did not know what was happening. We did not know who was doing what, and where the flag was brought from. We did not keep in mind that we live in a sensitive place,” the student said.
‘We crossed limits’, say non-local students
