SRINAGAR: Police used tear smoke shells on students who tried blocking the Moulana Azad Road, Monday morning. They were apparently protesting against the police action in the Pulwama Degree College in which more than 60 students were injured.
“They had come on the road and blocked the movement of traffic,” City Police Chief Imtiaz Ismal said. “We are trying to clear the road.”
Degree College Pulwama witnessed one of the serious troubles last week that was initiated by the security grid. Prior to the first phase of polls, they forcedly entered into the premises of the college on Wednesday last which triggered a serious crisis. Students took a strong exception to the entry of a security vehicle into the college on Wednesday last without the permission of the college administration. This led to withdrawal of the security vehicle.
On Saturday when the college resumed, police and paramilitary forces attempted a raid on college – an unprecedented action ever taken in history of Kashmir. Though the college principal had begged the security apparatus against entering into the premises, police barged in and it triggered a serious law and order crisis in the town. College teachers told Kashmir Life the police had come to avenge the Wednesday events and make arrests without even taking the college administration into loop.
The clashes led to more than 70 students getting injured. These included female students also. As the students and the college administration drove the injured to hospital – two of them in serious condition, the police and CRPF chased them to the medical facility. This created a situation that the police surrounded the hospital and lobbed countless tear smoke shells and students stayed put in the hospital premises.
Somehow the tensions ebbed only after the police withdrew from the scene, apparently under political intervention. By then, however, tensions has spread right and left forcing closure of the town. Interestingly, the collage raids were carried out at a time when Deputy Commissioner and District Police Chief were on leave.
Though the administration has closed the Pulwama College for two days, the students – watching the live feeds from the raids – have started reacting. Police said a few hundred students marched out of the SP College in Srinagar Monday morning and blocked the arterial M A Road. A police officer said they tried to convince the students to clear the road and protest within the college premises but they did not agree.
Police have been using tear smoke shells on the students and efforts are underway to push the students back to the college premises. By the time, this copy was filed, shelling was going on.
Though the life had started normally on Monday morning, the tensions in the key college on the main road run the risk of escalating to the streets. With massive shelling, the deafening sounds have already started impacting the routine. The shelling triggered panic, traffic jams and scare but life struggled to stay on roads.
While the traffic on one lane of M A Road remained disrupted for almost half an hour, the vehicles waited till the police cleared the passage. After an hour long tension, however, traffic has started thinning.
Police said they have a couple of cops including an officer injured. Police have actually entered entered into the premises of the college. While students are pelting stones on the police, the latter are using tear smoke, stunt grenades and other things in the college premises.
Number of students who might have been injured in the incident was not immediately known.
