CHANDIGARH, Feb 18: Over 300 Kashmiri students have reached Mohali from Uttarakhand and Haryana on their way to their homes, a student body arranging their stay in the Punjab town said today, amid reports of harassment of students from the Valley in Dehradun after the Pulwama terrorist attack.
Some Kashmiri youths studying in the Uttarakhand capital have alleged they were harassed and asked by their landlords to vacate accommodations fearing attacks on their properties after the terrorist strike in Pulwama on Thursday that left 44 CRPF personnel dead.
Over the past two days, nearly 280 students have arrived from Dehradun and up to 30 from Haryana’s Ambala district, said Jammu and Kashmir Students Organisation president Khwaja Itrat.
He said nearly 150 of the total students have moved towards Jammu, from where they will head to their homes in Kashmir Valley.
Meanwhile, the Haryana police has registered an FIR after a video on social media showed some people asking Kashmiri students to vacate their accommodations in Mullana.
“Another video has surfaced in which two students were threatened to vacate their private accommodations,” Ambala Superintendent of Police Astha Modi said today.
She said there were nearly 600 Kashmiri students in Ambala district, of whom 350-400 were enrolled in a private university in Mullana.
“We reached out to the students and assured them about their security. We also spoke to their parents and assured them. The students and their parents are satisfied with the steps we have taken,” she said.
“Mullana villagers are making announcements on loudspeakers, assuring Kashmiri students of their safety and security,” she said.
Officials said the security around other educational institutes in Haryana, including in Panchkula district, where a large number of Kashmiri students are enrolled, has been stepped up.
In Kolkata, a Kashmiri doctor, who has been living for 22 years, has claimed that he has been asked to leave the city or face “dire consequences” following the Pulwama terror strike.
The doctor, however, has decided to stay put after the West Bengal Government came to his rescue.
The doctor, who did not wish to be named, said he was heckled but he had not paid much heed to the threats he had received initially. However, his concern grew when some men gathered outside his residence and threatened to harm his daughter unless he “returned to Pakistan”.
On February 15, a day after the Pulwama attack, five men aged between 20 and 25 years came to his house after he returned home from his chamber, the doctor said, adding that they asked him to leave the city immediately and “go back to Pakistan as Kashmiris have no place in this country”.
“I was heckled by those men and threatened with dire consequences. Initially, I ignored those threats as I had never faced such a situation here in 22 years. The next morning, while I was leaving for my hospital, I again saw those men standing outside my house. They threatened me and said If I did not leave the city, my daughter would pay a heavy price,” he said.
The doctor admitted that this time the threats sounded more serious and he even made up his mind to leave. However, before preparing to leave the city that he grew so fond of, the doctor tried reaching the West Bengal Government as a last resort.
“I decided to inform Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee regarding the incident through social media platforms and posted a message on Facebook. I also left a message on the chief minister’s Facebook page,” he said.
The next day, the doctor received a call from the chairperson of the West Bengal State Commission for Protection of Child Rights.
Meanwhile, two more Kashmiri students have been arrested in Himachal Pradesh’s Solan district for their alleged anti-national activities, police said today.
Pirzada Tawish Fayaz and Aakib Rasool of Jammu and Kashmir were arrested on Sunday night for their alleged involvement in “anti-national” activities, Himachal Pradesh Police spokesperson and Superintendent of Police (law and order) Khushhal Sharma said.
They were studying at the Dr Yashwant Singh Parmar University of Horticulture and Forestry in Nauni of Solan district, popularly known as the Nauni University.
Sharma said that they were arrested on the basis of a complaint from one Neeraj Bhardwaj of Ber village in Solan.
In his complaint, Bhardwaj alleged that Fayaz had posted anti-national comments on his Facebook page, the SP said.
A few comments had also been attached with the complaint, the police official said.
The complainant further alleged that both Fayaz and Rasool were involved in anti-national activities and were “supporting Pakistan in India’s fight against terrorism”, the SP added.
Bhardwaj said he had come to know about the duo’s “anti-national” activities through his friend Vipul Sharma who is also a student of the Nauni university.
Subsequently, they were arrested and a First Information Report (FIR) under Indian Penal Code sections 153 B (imputations, assertions prejudicial to national-integration) and 34 (acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) was registered against them at Sadar police station in Solan, he said.
The matter is under investigation, the SP said.
The number of Kashmiri students arrested in Himachal Pradesh after the Pulwama terror attack for their alleged involvement in “anti-national” activities has now risen to three.
Tahseen Gul, who was studying at the Chitkara University in Baddi town and hails from Srinagar, was arrested Saturday for making “anti-national” remarks on photo-video sharing app Instagram. (PTI)
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