SC to hear plea on protection for Kashmiri students today

NEWDELHI/SRINAGAR: The Supreme Court will consider on Friday a petition seeking protection for Kashmiri students following attacks on the community in some parts of India in the aftermath of last week’s terror strike in Pulwama.

A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices L N Rao and Sanjiv Khanna took note of a submission that the plea needed to be heard urgently as it relates to the safety and security of students. The petition sought direction to the Centre for taking steps to prevent “threats, assaults, violent attacks, social boycotts, ostracism, evictions and other coercive acts” committed by groups and mobs against “Kashmiris and other minorities”. It also sought directions to the Centre and other authorities to set up a nationwide helpline and a website containing contact details of nodal officers.

The court’s decision came hours after four Kashmiri students were thrashed in Maharashtra’s Yavatmal late on Wednesday. District superintendent of police M Rajkumar said some attackers were identified from a video shared on social media and a case was registered.

A suicide bomber in Kashmir’s Pulwama rammed his car into a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy last Thursday, killing 40 personnel. Since then, Kashmiris have been attacked and abused in several states, including in Rajasthan, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, where a video of a shawl trader being thrashed by a mob in Nadia has spread panic in the Valley.

“A Kashmiri shawl vendor was heckled. A Kashmiri doctor practising here for years was intimidated. What audacity! How dare they label people hailing from a particular state as propakistan?” said chief minister Mamata Banerjee on Thursday.

In Kashmir, leaders across the political divide condemned the attacks. Former chief minister Omar Abdullah attacked Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Congress for their “silence”. “We had not much hope from BJP… While PM is silent, at the same time it is unfortunate that the leadership of country’s biggest opposition party is also silent.”

› ...While PM is silent... it is unfortunate that the leadership of country’s biggest opposition party is also silent OMAR ABDULLAH , Former J&K CM