Two Kashmiri students in Indian Occupied Kashmir were brutally assaulted by a group of Hindu extremists in the Indian state of Haryana.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the students identified as Aftab and Amjad, doing M.Sc in Geography at Haryana’s Central University, were beaten up after they offered Friday prayers at a local masjid in Mahendragarh town.
A Kashmiri student at the varsity, Rehaan Andrabi, told a Srinagar-based English daily Kashmir Reader over phone that the students had gone to the market to offer Juma prayers and buy some essentials. When they came out, around 15 people followed them and brutally assaulted them without any reason, he said, adding that the students received injuries on their face and body.
He said that the Kashmiri students dialed the police helpline number to register complaint but nobody from the department came forward. “Police told us that doctors should talk to them so that they come to the hospital for registering the complaint.
At 7pm, we reached our university hostel and brought the issue to the notice of the authorities, who got the complaint filed with the police after much struggle,” he said.
On the other hand, Bhopal police arrested a Kashmiri student who was part of a tour sponsored by the Kashmir University of Agriculture Science and Technology, Srinagar. After his detention, the student has been sent to judicial custody.
The university sources told media that a group of 24 B-Tech students including 17 females had gone to Bhopal, Maharashtra and Haryana for 3-month training course. “After completing their training course, on January 31, the students boarded a train from Bhopal to Delhi.
In the AC coach-12155, a local woman first questioned them asking them why such a large number of Kashmiris were travelling in the train,” they said.
“The woman clicked a photograph of our five kg gas cylinder which we were carrying. The woman tweeted that photograph with caption ‘Dozens of Kashmiris carrying a bomb in Delhi-bound Bhopal train,” said some students who were part of the tour.
They said that railway authorities let them off after advising them not to carry gas cylinders next time in the train, but as soon as the train reached Vidisha Railway Station, the cops from Habib Gunj Police Station directed them to alight from the train.
The students said, “We all were paraded and photographed. The cops after questioning, detained one of our fellow students and lodged him at Habib Gunj Police Station.”
The arrested student was identified as Muhammad Idress of South Kashmir’s Islamabad district.
“We were harassed and abused. The locals as well as police labeled us terrorists. The pseudo nationalist woman who tweeted the photograph with misleading caption abused us even in front of the police and other locals,” the students said.
