Student protests erupt again in Kashmir after colleges reopen
Security forces had to use tear gas, fire in the air to disperse protesters who took to streets again shouting proazaadi slogans
SRINAGAR: Protests rocked Srinagar on Monday as students clashed with police, who used tear gas to disperse protesters as colleges opened after a five-day shutdown. As soon as colleges reopened on Monday, students of Sri Pratap Higher Secondary School and College came out on the roads adjacent to the institutions and pelted stones at security forces, who retaliated with tear gas and water cannons.
Students shouted Islamic and pro-azadi slogans as they charged at the security personnel. At one point, forces also fired in the air to disperse the protesters. Senior superintendent of police, Srinagar, Imtiaz Ismail Parray was hit by a stone on his arm. “I am fine now,” he told HT.
The protests came on a day when J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi and pressed for a dialogue with separatists in the state.
Eyewitnesses recounted that students from SP College climbed the walls of the nearby women’s college and started targeting security personnel with stones.
“Some students also reached the gate of the women’s college and targeted the security personnel from there. Meanwhile, behind the boys, some women students also started protesting inside the women’s college campus and eventually, some of them protested on the road as well,” an eyewitness said.
Police fired dozens of tear gas shells inside the women’s college campus that left students and faculty members present inside feeling suffocated, a teacher said.
Lal Chowk and adjoining areas descended into chaos with traffic caught in the ensuing disturbance while tear gas smoke left pedestrians with fits of coughing. A press photographer was also reportedly injured while covering the clashes. A shopkeeper said, “In the long period of time I have been working out of Lal Chowk, I have never seen such a situation. It seems students have overcome their fear of injury or even death.”
Students kept regrouping and targeting security forces after short intervals. A police control room official said students had come out on the roads and security forces retaliated to quell the protests. “The situation is now under control,” the official said on Monday afternoon.
Former CM Omar Abdullah tweeted: “While @MehboobaMufti goes door to door in Delhi to save her job the state teeters on the brink - student protests are the new worry.”
Unprecedented student protests had erupted across the Valley last Monday against the alleged high-handedness of security forces in Pulwama Degree College in south Kashmir on April 15. Following the clashes on April 17, the government had ordered shutdown of classes.