Normalcy restored in NIT, Srinagar

Worth mentioning, a group of students on Monday demanded postponement of all academic activities including exams in the NIT till normalcy returns to the campus.

“Barely 10-15%, mostly from Kashmir, have stayed back”, said a student from Bikaner.

“As far as the demands made by some students to shift the NIT campus out of Srinagar, let me make it clear that it won’t be possible”, she said in response to a question.

Sources said the HRD Ministry circulated an email id, asking students who wanted to leave to inform authorities so that preparations for their examinations later could be done. NIT Srinagar has been at the centre of a controversy since April 1 when clashes broke out between outstation and local students following India’s defeat to West Indies in the World Cup T20 semi-final. The local police is manning the main gate of the institute.

“The Indian state is playing politics; when outstation students in NIT, Srinagar, played a drama of harassment, Delhi media ran it on their TVs and when our students are being beaten outside Kashmir there is no news”, the students said.

In the backdrop of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) Srinagar campus trouble, Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh met Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti today. The police have alleged that the students attacked cops with stones.

“Kashmiri students are harassed everywhere in the country”.

Duing her meeting with Gadkari, Mehbooba sought higher allocation under the Central Road Fund for the state and assured full support for land acquisition for construction of ring roads in the two cities of Jammu and Srinagar.

This led to protest by outstation students resulting in clashes. “Every day they (protesters) come to our classes and ask us to join them. We want to get out of campus and do not want to risk our lives to continue with studies”, Srikant Rajwar, a third-year electronics student from Jharkhand, told the Hindustan Times.