NIT Srinagar row: Institute agrees to ease curbs on girl students, festivals

Over 100 protesters leading a ‘Tiranga Yatra’ to the NIT from Delhi were also turned back from Lakhanpur, at the state’s border with Punjab. Before leaving, the youths handed a Tricolour to Additional SP, Kathua, Khalil Poswal, for “unfurling at the NIT”.

Among the demands the NIT has agreed to are relaxing hostel timings for girl students, bringing transparency in examinations and allowing students to celebrate different festivals. The students from outside Kashmir had raised the demands before a team sent by the HRD Ministry as well as the state government. The notification issued by the institute added, “There was a demand that NIT be shifted from Srinagar. This can’t be agreed to as per the HRD ministry.”

On girl students, the notification said that the “pass system” would be immediately removed. Currently, girl students need special passes to leave the campus. Now they would just have to register their time of exit and entry at the NIT and hostel gates. As per the new hostel timings, in summers, girl students can remain out of hostel from 5.30 am to 7.30 pm now, instead of the current 6.30 pm deadline. The administration also said “no permission” would be required to celebrate festivals on campus.

Students have been told that issues flagged by them such as the lack of wi-fi and the shabby rooms and mess would be placed before a meeting of the Board of Governors on April 11. “The Ministry of HRD will monitor the action taken report,” says the order.

When Kher arrived in Srinagar, he was taken to the VIP lounge of the airport by police and told that he wouldn’t be allowed to move out. A senior police officer explained that they didn’t want the atmosphere on the campus “to be vitiated again”. While waiting at the airport, Kher tweeted, “Landed in Srinagar. ‘HOME’ away from home. Will go to #NITSrinagar & meet the students & give them a warm hug & a special gift.:).” The gift Kher was talking about was the Tricolour. Later, he said, “I have been told by J&K Police that I cannot enter Srinagar city at all. I have asked them to show me the orders. Still at the airport.”

The ‘Tiranga Yatra’ was led by Tejinder Pal Singh Bagga of the Bhagat Singh Kranti Dal, earlier arrested for attacking lawyer-activist Prashant Bhushan. Organised under a newly formed ‘Group of Citizens’, that came together on social media, they had set off from Delhi’s Gurdwara Rakab Ganj. They were stopped at Lakhanpur around Saturday midnight. Crossing over, they raised slogans such as “Bharat Mata ki jai” and “Jahan hue bali Mukherjee, woh Kashmir hamara hai (Where Dr Syama Prasad Mookerjee laid down his life, that Kashmir is ours)”.

Congress general secretary Ambika Soni, who is on a tour of the state, demanded a judicial probe into the incidents at NIT.