Pulwama fallout: Students clash with forces in J&K
College students clash with security forces in Srinagar on Monday to protest against a recent police action at a college in J&K’s Pulwama in which more than 60 students were injured. Dozens were injured in Monday’s clashes after which the authorities ordered the closure of schools, colleges and other educational institutions. All examinations scheduled for Tuesday have been postponed. Mobile Internet services have also been suspended across the Kashmir Valley.
Dozens of students, including women, were injured on Monday in intense clashes with the police and other security forces in different towns of Kashmir, including summer capital Srinagar. Several security personnel also sustained injuries in stone-pelting incidents, officials said.
Following the day-long clashes, the authorities ordered the closure of schools, colleges and other educational institutions on Tuesday “as a precautionary measure”, and all university and other examinations scheduled for the day have been postponed. Mobile Internet services were also suspended as people had started uploading videos showing “atrocities” being inflicting on protesting students on social media sites.
In the evening, chief minister Mehbooba Muti was with governor N.N. Vohra at Raj Bhavan in the winter capital Jammu to discuss the situation and other law and order-related issues as well the bypolls in Srinagar and in Anantnag, official sources said.
The clashes erupted soon after the students took to the streets at these places to protest against the “brutal use of force” against their comrades in and outside the government-run Degree College in southern Pulwama town on Saturday. More than 50 students had been injured as the security forces used teargas and shotgun pellets against the male and female students who were protesting against the police establishing a checkpoint outside the campus.
The call for holding protests against the Pulwama incidents had been issued by a students’ union.
Police sources and witnesses said that the students, while responding to the call, boycotted their classes and held protests in and outside educational institutions in all ten districts of the Valley — Srinagar, Shopian, Kulgam, Anantnag, Pulwama, Kupwara Baramulla, Ganderbal, Budgam and Bandipore. The security forces fired hundreds of teargas canisters and swung bamboo sticks to disperse the protesters, leaving dozens of them injured. In Srinagar, several students of the Government Women’s College at Moulana Azad Road fainted after the police fired tear and pepper gas shells onto the protesters. Several police and other security personnel were also injured in stonepelting by students in Srinagar and elsewhere, officials said. In Hajin area of Bandipore, a mob of students allegedly attacked a police station with rocks and other missiles, officials said.
Some schools, including the Delhi Public School at Srinagar, had declared a holiday on Monday in view of the growing tensions and resentment in the student community against Saturday’s incidents in Pulwama.