NIT protest: RSS-backed organisation shoots off letter to PM Modi condemning lathicharge on students

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Tempers have been rising on the NIT campus ever since some students from the Valley and some from outside the state clashed following India’s semi-final loss to the West Indies in the T-20 World Cup last week.

Engineering students from outside the state have alleged that Kashmiri students had chanted anti-India slogans and burst firecrackers after India lost. Local students, however, claim that trouble was started by their classmates from outside the state. Police were eventually called in and lathicharge and teargas were used to control the crowd.

Referring to the unrest, the letter describes the students who led a protest march against the chanting of anti-India slogans as “nationalists” and objects to the police lathicharge. “Ït seems that the Jawaharlal Nehru University incident has emboldened the anti-national elements in the country,” the letter states.

“If such incidents are not checked it will only encourage the anti-national elements and discourage the patriots.”

Kothari has sought an inquiry by an “appropriate agency” into who allowed the J&K police to enter the institute and lathicharge students and why the media is being stopped from entering the campus.

SSUN has also demanded that the director of NIT, Srinagar, be dismissed and appropriate action be taken against students who shouted anti-India slogans and waved the Pakistani flag on campus to celebrate India’s loss to West Indies in the T-20 World Cup final.