J&K govt orders probe into police action at NIT Srinagar

Meanwhile, the NIT administration has asked students, who wish to leave for their homes, to furnish details so that they can “facilitate their transit”.

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A notice put up by the college administration reads, “Those students who want to leave the campus and go to home must furnish names of their parents and their contact numbers. (The) Institute will obtain permission from the respective parents to facilitate their transit.”

The administration has also asked the protesting students to choose their representatives for further discussions with MHRD team that has arrived in Srinagar.

On Thursday, outstation students boycotted classes once again, hoisted the Tricolour on campus and sang the national anthem, while local students continued with classes as usual. In the late afternoon, some protesting female students tried to leave the campus but were stopped by the police and paramilitary forces deployed in and outside the institute.

Meanwhile, coming out in support of the students, J&K Deputy Chief Minister Dr Nirmal Singh said “looking at the injuries sustained by the students, there is no reason to disbelieve them that the police have committed atrocities”.

The education minister, who is also chief spokesperson of the PDP, has appealed against segregating the NIT students into locals and non-locals. “Today, we have national institutes all over the country and all of them have a mixed population. They are acting as melting pots,” he said.

Stressing that the NIT incident has been “wrongly projected as a security issue”, the minister had said on Wednesday evening, “I don’t think this is a security issue, as 85 per cent of the students are from outside the state. Of course, there has been police action and we have also gone through the clippings on social media and have taken note of these.”

“I want to reassure the parents, wherever they are… kindly rest assured… they (students) are like my own children. I am their guardian in Kashmir and they need not be apprehensive of their security,” he had said.

When asked whether delay in timely action by the administration escalated the situation, as tension had reportedly been mounting on the campus for the past many days, Akhtar said the students had issues regarding the staff, faculty, besides external and internal assessment.

“These are issues where the state government does not come in. Not even the Union government… in autonomous bodies like the NIT,” Akhtar said.

Urging the NIT students to “show maturity and brotherhood with each other”, Separatist hardliner Syed Ali Shah Geelani said, “The outstation students are our guests but at the same time they must go through the historical background of Jammu Kashmir and understand the severity of the state, as it is not the state of India like Bihar or Uttar Pradesh.”