KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
Former Chief Minister of Jammu and Kashmir and National Conference Working President Omar Abdullah on Wednesday said the harassment and hounding of Kashmiri students in Delhi on the pretext of the JNU crackdown was unacceptable and reeked of an all-too-familiar profiling of Kashmiris in the national capital.
“If the Delhi Police and the Home Ministry want to unleash a dictatorial and tyrannical crackdown on dissenting voices and students in Delhi, they should not make Kashmiri students convenient scapegoats and stigmatize them and in turn ruin their careers. This is unacceptable,” Omar Abdullah said in a statement issued from National Conference Headquarters in Srinagar on Wednesday.
“There have been numerous instances in the past when the Delhi Police has cited ‘intelligence inputs’ to falsely implicate young Kashmiris in Delhi only to be acquitted by the courts after years of incarceration. Now this recent decision to hound Kashmiri students from JNU and other colleges seems to be another addition to this chapter. We express our resentment against this blanket stereotyping and maligning of Kashmiri students and demand that the Government of India desists from ruining their careers for the benefit of political expediency.”
Abdullah said such policies of selective persecution and profiling add to the perception of alienation and isolation among the youth of the State.
“The message this type of policing sends out is disastrous and has severe long term implications on the psyche of our youth. Profiling and hounding Kashmiri students on one pretext or the other creates a deep sense of insecurity and apprehension among thousands of our students enrolled in universities across the country. This is extremely unfortunate and we will not remain silent and allow their en-masse persecution.”
