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| Parrikar surprises all by muting demands of non-Kashmiri students | | NIT issue takes a back seat | | Early Times Report
JAMMU, Apr 15: The Srinagar NIT issue that had last week brought the state to a tipping point has now taken a back seat to the more immediate issue of killing of civilians in the Handwara firing. Even defence minister Manohar Parrikar made no mention of it when he Wednesday assured J&K chief minister Mehbooba Mufti of a time-bound probe into the Handwara killings.
Parrikar's assurance to hand exemplary punishment to those responsible for the deaths at Handwara is a welcome step, but the way he and BJP-led central government have muted the demand for action against Kashmiri students of Srinagar NIT, who had celebrated India's loss to West Indies in the T20 Cricket World Cup and indulged in anti-national sloganeering and disrespected the national flag, deserves strongest condemnation.
Parrikar's compulsion could be to keep the BJP-PDP coalition government intact, but it definitely has not sent good signals about him and the saffron party. His silence on the NIT issue is likely to discourage the nationalist non-local students who fought against the anti-India ideology at the campus and, in the process, became victims of the brutal police force.
The all-important NIT issue has undoubtedly taken a back seat, following the Handwara killings, but does that mean that the demands of non-Kashmiri students would not be addressed now? This issue is also not less important. The non-local students have already boycotted examinations and left the campus for homes, demanding shifting of the campus for them to Jammu.
After the clashes, an HRD delegation too had visited the NIT campus in Srinagar. While they had a meeting with non-local students in the common hall of the institute, they unanimously said: "Allow us go homes and then you can decide where we should study. We want new faculty and the NIT shifted immediately. Also, the J&K police should change their statement that it was a mild lathicharge or that we pelted stones at them.
They have also taken away a national flag which should be returned to us."
No demand of the non-local students has so far been met. Had Parrikar announced a probe into the NIT issue too, this would have acted as a deterrent against such anti-India incidents in future at the campus. It would not be wrong to say that the Centre's silence on such vital issues of national importance shakes the confidence of nationalists in the valley.
While probing into the Handwara killings, investigators should not ignore one thing that a handful of people had initially created a scene at Handwara over an alleged act of molestation that never took place on ground. A video of the alleged victim, that had gone viral on social networking sites, also confirmed that no soldier ever molested her. |
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