Chandigarh: Fearing for their safety after the Pulwama attack that killed 40 CRPF personnel, dozens of Kashmiri students from several Indian states have moved to Punjab where local Kashmiri students have offered them temporary safe shelters.
Almost 70 students from Dehradun and Ambala arrived in Punjab’s Mohali Sunday where local Kashmiri students have made arrangements for their lodging and boarding.
The latest set of almost two dozen students arrived late Sunday night.
Khwaja Itrat, president of J&K Students Union in Punjab, said more students are expected to reach Punjab in the coming days as the situation for Kashmiri students at several places in the country was “not good”.
Most of the students who arrived in Mohali are living in a cluster of flats in a private colony where other Kashmiri students studying in the local colleges live.
Some local gurdwaras have also offered to house the Kashmiri students in case there is a shortage of accommodation organised by the students union.
On Sunday, Punjab chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh said that the 4,000 Kashmiri students studying in the state colleges have nothing to fear and will be given adequate protection by the police.
Mohali senior superintendent of police (SSP) Harcharan Singh Bhullar said that additional security arrangements had been made in the areas where the Kashmiri students were residing.
“There is absolutely no threat to any of the students living here but we have advised the student union leaders not to call more students from outside till they have adequate arrangements to accommodate them,” Bhullar told ThePrint.
Earlier this morning, about 50 Kashmiri students were sent to Jammu, said Itrat.
Inadequate accommodation
Speaking to ThePrint, Amroze Singh, deputy superintendent of police, Mohali city, also said, “We have told the student union leader not to gather students and leave them stranded on roads until there is suitable accommodation for them. There are already around 60 students living in two flats.”
“Local residents are complaining about unidentified men and women suddenly flooding their society. Therefore, we have advised not to create fear psychosis in minds of outstation students and refrain from creating a law and order situation by misleading them without proper boarding and lodging arrangements,” said Singh.
However, the police advice has not been taken kindly by the students union.
“We were told by the police not to call Kashmiri students to Mohali and instead ask them to go to Delhi or Leh and Ladakh. Imagine our condition, that we are not even getting a place to hide,” said Itrat.
Also read: Kashmiri students in Delhi fear for safety as Pulwama attack protests gain ground
Most from Dehradun
After some students in Dehradun were reported to have been beaten up by supporters of Hindutva outfits Friday, other Kashmiri students had locked themselves inside their hostel rooms fearing mob attacks.
Many of the students who arrived in Mohali Sunday are from various management and technology institutes of Dehradun. They claimed that several Kashmiri students were thrashed by the mobs, adding that they remained locked up in their rooms. They said some of them survived on just a few cups of tea in the previous 48 hours.
Dehradun police, however, has denied any incident of violence against Kashmiri students.
From Ambala and Himachal too
On Friday, during a march held in the memory of Pulwama martyrs in the Mullana village in Haryana’s Ambala district, the sarpanch reportedly issued an ultimatum to the residents asking them to ensure that Kashmiri students living in the village as paying guests should vacate the village in 24 hours.
As the video of the announcement went viral, the deputy commissioner stepped in and shifted the students living in the paying guests to the university hostel for security.
Despite the intervention of the district administration, some landlords offering their houses for accommodation to Kashmiri students asked them to leave while in some cases the students decided to leave for Mohali fearing a threat to their lives.
“We cannot go back to Kashmir by road as the situation in Jammu is also not very conducive. The airfare to Srinagar has increased 10 folds in the past few days. A ticket which was costing Rs 3,000 is now costing Rs 30,000,” a student who arrived from Ambala told ThePrint.
The situation in Himachal Pradesh also reportedly took a drastic turn Saturday after a B.Tech student of a private university in Baddi was arrested for allegedly glorifying suicide bomber Adil Ahmed Dar.
As the news of his impending arrest spread, several students of the university gathered around the hostel demanding action against other Kashmiri students as well.
The university has about half a dozen Kashmiri students living in the hostel most of whom moved out of the campus following the incident to go and live with their relatives and friends in Chandigarh.
Also read: Post Pulwama attack, 10 hard questions for the Narendra Modi government