Seven students were arrested at the veterinary college hostel in Ganderbal district of Indian-administered Kashmir for celebrating Australia’s victory in the Cricket World Cup final between India and Australia and harassing non-Kashmiri students. Is.
The arrested students have been booked under the new Anti-Terrorism Act UAPA and are also being prosecuted under Section 505 of the Indian Penal Code.
This section deals with inciting communal violence and harassment of opposing sects.
The Ganderbal district police have taken this action on the complaint of a student from Indian Punjab studying in the college. According to the FR filed by the Ganderbal police on the student’s complaint, he was watching the final match and supporting India.
According to the FIR, ‘As soon as the match was over, the students started abusing me, asked me to be quiet and it didn’t stop there, they even threatened to shoot me. While all of them continued to threaten me, they also raised slogans of ‘Jive Jeeve Pakistan’, which scared the non-Kashmiri students very much.
The student wrote in his complaint that he remained locked in his room for several hours due to fear and did not come out, but after a few hours he got courage and contacted the police.
This veterinary college is actually affiliated to Kashmir University of Agricultural Science and Technology (SQUAST).
College officials have confirmed the arrests, but university officials say there are ‘some misconceptions that are being cleared.’ is being attempted.’
An official of the college administration, on the condition of anonymity, said, “There is a spat among the children, but unfortunately the complaint was not made to the warden, but directly to the police.”
It is also worth mentioning here that a total of 300 students have studied in this college in Indian-administered Kashmir, of which about 40 are from Rajasthan, Punjab and other Indian states.
Former Chief Minister and People’s Democratic Party chief Mehbooba Mufti termed these arrests as very alarming and said that clapping on the winning team in the competition has also been declared a crime. The filing of UAPA cases against journalists, volunteers and now students shows how brutal the establishment’s attitude towards the youth of Jammu and Kashmir is.
He has appealed to Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha to intervene in the matter.
It should be noted that this is not the first incident of its kind, but two Kashmiri students have been expelled from the hostel in a similar incident at Jamia Millia Islamia University in New Delhi.
He is accused of setting off fireworks at the end of the 2023 Cricket World Cup final after Australia won.
What is the new anti-terrorism law ‘UAPA’?
The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act was originally passed in 1967, but the law was amended in 2019 to make it tougher, giving law enforcement agencies broad powers to take actions ‘against the integrity and unity of the country’. And behaviors can be restricted.
Under the amended law, it is very difficult for those arrested to appear in court for a long period of time or get bail from the court.
The police have said in a statement regarding the FIR against the students in Ganderbal that ‘this action is not just about sloganeering.’
“The background of the sloganeering is an attempt to normalize the anti-India sentiments that are fueled by terrorists and separatists.”
The statement added that ‘this is not a matter of criticism or freedom of expression but of terrorizing people who have pro-India or anti-Pakistan sentiments.’