SRINAGAR: At least 17 boys, all students, were injured when police and CRPF came to arrest some students at Government Degree College, Pulwama, reports said. The cops had actually laid a naka outside the main gate.
It immediately led to clashes between the police and students outside Government Degree College Pulwama on Saturday afternoon. Though the reasons for the clashes were not immediately known, but a general belief is that the police had come to arrest the students who had objected to the entry of an armoured vehicle into the college last week. That incident had led to the closure of the college.
(A picture of medical staff at the district hospital Pulwama used here for merely representational purposes. It has no relevance to the story.)
Reports said that, police party along with CRPF personnel came to arrest those youth who pelted stones on forces on Wednesday, when forces tried to park their army vehicle inside the college premises, triggering clashes.
As the clashes ensued, the police and CRPF used teargas shells to disperse them. As it failed, they put on pellet guns. One student identified as Zeeshan Ahmed resident of Koil Pulwama has received a head injury.
Efforts to get the police version of the incidents failed as most of the top police officers had their phones switched off. They probably were busy with the situation that emerged with their intervention.
When students and the college administration rushed the injured to the hospital, the cops seemingly followed them there. It led to another clash.
“We received 15 injured persons of whom one has a serious eye injury because of the pellets,” a senior doctor from District Hospital Pulwama said. “One young man having head injury – possibly because of shell – was referred to SMHS.” He said all others are stable as they mostly injured by pellets. Another report said another young man was also refereed to Srinagar.
“Right now the hospital is in mess,” the senior doctor said. “The students had come with the injured and the cops followed them here. Right now students are in the premises of the hospital and cops outside, they are fighting – stones and tear smoke shells.”
Pulwama is part of the south Kashmir Lok Sabha constituency that had its polls rescheduled. It is slated to go to polls on May 25.
