At least 24 people, including 12 security personnel, were injured on Monday after fresh clashes broke out between security forces and students at Srinagar’s Sri Pratap Higher Secondary School and College. The incident took place on the first day educational institutes opened in the region after remaining shut for five days owing to violence and protests last Monday.
At least six students were detained, reported The Indian Express. “Twelve personnel, including three officers, were injured in stone pelting. Some boys involved in stone pelting were caught on the spot and detained by the police. The mob was dispersed, and normalcy was restored in the area,” the police said.
The violence began when a group of students tried to take out a march from the college campus on Maulana Azad Road. Some started pelting stones at security forces, prompting them to use batons and tear gas to disperse the protestors. Eyewitnesses said students scaled the walls of a nearby women’s college and started pelting stones. “Some female students also started protesting inside the women’s college campus, and eventually, some of them protested on the road as well,” an eyewitness told Hindustan Times.
Later, people from other parts of Srinagar joined the protesting students. Clashes continued throughout the day at Lal Chowk and nearby localities. State Education Minister Altaf Bukhari told The Indian Express that outsiders joined the students and instigated them. “I appeal to students to avoid being used by vested interests. Academics should be their priority,” he said.
Earlier on Monday, Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti had met Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi. The two leaders had discussed the deteriorating law and order situation in the state and decided that peace talks could only be held in a conducive atmosphere.
Meanwhile, former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah took a jibe at Mufti’s efforts to restore law and order situation in the Valley. “While Mehbooba Mufti goes door to door in Delhi to save her job, the state teeters on the brink – student protests are the new worry,” he said on Twitter.
On April 15, at least 54 students sustained injuries during clashes with security personnel outside Degree College in South Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama town. Witnesses said the incident took place when several students exited the college premises to stage a demonstration against a checkpoint installed by local police and the Central Reserve Police Force outside the campus.
Two days after the incident, the state government had suspended mobile internet services in Kashmir and asked all educational institutes to remain shut to avoid more violence. Incidents of protests and subsequent clashes with security forces have been on the rise since disturbing videos surfaced from the region. While one video showed a civilian tied to the bonnet of an Indian Army jeep and taken around a locality to deter stone pelters, another showed a few residents harassing a soldier.
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