Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar on Wednesday refuted reports about alleged harassment of Kashmiri students in parts of the country after the terror attack in Pulwama last week.
Javadekar said: “There is massive anger at the Pulwama incident in the country, but I want to make it clear that there is nothing like that [harassment of Kashmiri students]. We are in touch with all institutes, no such incident took place.”
There were reports of several Kashmiri students being harassed and beaten up in Dehradun over the weekend, days after 40 Central Reserve Police Force officers were killed in a suicide attack in Jammu and Kashmir’s Pulwama. Since then, many Kashmiri students in Uttarakhand have temporarily left the state. According to a report in The Hindu, nearly 300 Kashmiri students have fled to Jammu and Delhi from colleges in Uttarakhand after large-scale eviction from their campuses.
The managements of two colleges in Dehradun also announced that they will not give admissions to Kashmiri students following the protests. But one college said it was forced to make the announcement under pressure.
The Uttarakhand Police on Tuesday had arrested 22 students for staging a protest demanding the expulsion of Kashmiri students in the city.
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