Two Muslim students at the Government Medical College, Jammu, were injured on Sunday in clashes that erupted over the film The Kerala Story, Scroll has learnt.
A student at the college who wished to remain anonymous told Scroll that Muslims were attacked after some of them objected to a student posting a link to The Kerala Story on a WhatsApp group. Those who objected said that the group was only meant for sharing academic information and study material.
The injured persons have been identified as Umar Farooq, a first-year student from Kashmir’s Budgam district, and Haseeb Ahmad, a final-year student from Jammu’s Bhaderwah town. Both of them were taken to a hospital.
The film claims to depict how women from Kerala were converted to Islam and recruited by terrorist group, the Islamic State. Earlier this month, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had claimed at a rally in Karnataka that the film exposes terrorist conspiracies in Kerala. However, critics say that the film propagates stereotypes about Muslims as being violent and maligns the state of Kerala.
On Sunday evening, when Muslim students went to the college canteen to have dinner, they were allegedly attacked by a group of other students. “Even when some senior Muslim students tried to reason with them, they were attacked as well,” the student said. “One of them was hit in the head with some sharp object and he has got 12 stitches on his head.”
A group of outsiders also entered the college and started beating up Muslims, the student alleged. “They entered one of the hostels and turned off the lights of the corridor so that their faces were not caught on CCTV footage,” the student said. “These outsiders then entered the room of two of our seniors who were studying in their room and beat them up.”
A group of Muslim students, many of them from Kashmir, has been protesting on the campus since Sunday night demanding that the students involved in the violence be rusticated and outsiders arrested.
“We haven’t gone to our rooms since last evening,” the student said. “We are afraid after what happened to us yesterday. The college authorities and police should ensure that we feel safe inside the campus.”
Senior Superintendent of Police Chandan Kohli said: “There has been an incident of scuffle between some students and outsiders in GMC hostel Jammu. Cognisance of the matter has been taken and investigation is going on.”
Peoples Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti urged Jammu and Kashmir Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to take cognisance of the violence and ensure that the culprits are punished.
“Shocking that [government] promotes and encourages violence through movies stoking communal fires,” she said on Twitter. “The blood of innocents is being spilled to quench BJPs insatiable thirst for petty electoral dividends.”
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