New Delhi: Three Kashmiri youth were arrested in Agra Wednesday for allegedly sharing pro-Pakistan posts on WhatsApp after India lost the T-20 World Cup match against Pakistan Sunday.
The three — Arsheed Yusuf, Inayat Altaf Sheikh and Showkat Ahmed Gilani — students of Raja Balwant Singh Engineering Technical College in Agra had earlier been suspended from college over the same posts. While Arsheed and Inayat are third-year Civil Engineering students, Showkat is a year senior to them.
Ashish Shukla, the chief proctor of Raja Balwant Singh Engineering Technical College, told ThePrint, “We found objectionable content in their WhatsApp statuses and the next day we suspended them. On the morning of 25 October, we held a meeting and found the content objectionable and a decision was taken to suspend them. As for the arrests, the police will look into the matter.”
According to the suspension letter, which ThePrint has seen, “The students were found involved in an indiscipline act of posting status in favour of Pakistan after the India Pakistan match on 24/10/2021. Therefore the hostel discipline committee has decided to suspend all three of them with immediate effect.”
The police later arrested the three and have booked them under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups) and 505(1)(B) (intent to cause, or which is likely to cause, fear or alarm to public) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and also charged them under Section 66F of the Information Technology Act.
An officer at the Jagdishpura (Agra) police station, where an FIR was registered against the three, said on condition of anonymity, “The trio has been arrested for making anti-national statements. The complaint was registered by concerned citizens of the country. We can not share any further information with the media right now.”
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Kashmiri Students leave Agra
Mansoor Wani, a post-graduation student in Agra claimed that Kashmiri students have since been leaving the city, fearing their lives. He said, “While we do wish that free speech was tolerated in the country, we acknowledge that the status of the students hurt the sentiments of the people. They said they uploaded the status because one of the players in the Pakistan team was their favorite and they were rooting for him.”
Wani also said that the three arrested students had apologised to the college authorities for putting up a status that hurt their sentiments.
Wani’s claims of Kashmiri students leaving Agra fearing backlash was, however, denied by Shukla. “There is no such thing. Most colleges in the city are shutting down due to the upcoming Diwali break, which is why students have gone back home,” he said.
Meanwhile, the Jammu and Kashmir Students Association (JKSA) has arranged lawyers to defend the three arrested students. Speaking to ThePrint, Nasir Khuehami, national spokesperson of JKSA, said, “We have arranged for lawyers to defend our fellow students. We understand what they may have said has hurt sentiments, but the suspension and FIR will ruin the career of these boys. The JKSA has also written to state chief minister Yogi Adityanath to help the students return to their studies and revoke the FIR.”
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