NIT-Srinagar students don’t trust J&K police, says Scindia

Police lathicharge on students at National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, last month reverberated in the Lok Sabha on Tuesday with the Congress taking up cudgels for the latter and demanding action against the police personnel responsible for it.

Congress chief whip Jyotiraditya Scindia denounced the “brutal lathicharge” on students and said that they don’t trust the Jammu and Kashmir police. This came on a day when Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi met NIT students and assured them that his party would raise their concerns with the government.

The party has also decided send a delegation to HRD minister Smriti Irani soon.

Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Scindia said suggestions that it was “mild lathicharge” were akin to rubbing salt on the wounds, as one student had to undergo surgery after the beating.

“Students do not trust the J&K police. Insecurity continues to prevail on the campus, but those giving lectures on nationalism are quiet,” the MP said.

BJP MP RK Singh said it was wrong to give a bad name to the J&K police. All India Majlis-eIttehadul Musalmeen (AIMIM) leader Asaduddin Owaisi also struck a discordant note saying that 3,000 personnel of Jammu and Kashmir police have laid down their lives serving the nation.

Minister of state for home Kiren Rijiju clarified that the Union government had not made a unilateral decision to deploy three companies of the CRPF and that this had been done at the request of the NIT authorities. The outside periphery would continue to be guarded by the J&K police, he added.