Students scuffle during talk on Article 370 in JNU

NEW DELHI: A scuffle broke out between two sections of students in the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) on Thursday during a talk organised by the administration on the scrapping of Article 370 in Kashmir.

Union minister Jitendra Singh was the speaker at the event. Ahead of the event titled “abrogation of article 370: peace, stability and development in Jammu, Kashmir and Ladakh”, around 30-40 students from different Left-affiliated and Ambedkar groups started to protest outside the venue. The protesters raised slogans against the communication blackout in Kashmir in the aftermath of the scrapping Article 370 by the Centre on August 5.

The situation turned tense when some members of the RSSaffiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) started a counter protest at the same site. A scuffle broke out between the members of both the groups when they started to outshout each other. However, no one was injured and there was no damage to the university property. Several videos of the scuffle which were shared on social media sites by students from the both the groups show people jostling and shouting at each other. During his address, Singh said there has been no curfew in the Kashmir Valley ever since the Centre had announced the scrapping of Article 370 and reconstitution of the state of Jammu and Kashmir into two union territories—Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.