Reportedly, more than 600 non-Kashmiri students from the National Institute of Technology in Srinagar have left the campus following days of tension between them and the local students over the seemingly unending debate on nationalism.
On Sunday, right wing activist turned actor Anupam Kher was denied permission to meet the aggrieved students of the institute and forcefully sent back from the Srinagar Airport. Following the incident, around 600 students left the campus on Monday. It is learned that 500 more students plan to leave the campus on Tuesday.
“We feel suffocated here as we are not allowed to go outside or talk to media. We want to get out of campus and do not want to risk our lives to continue with studies,” said Srikant Rajwar, a third-year electronics student from Ramgarh to the Hindustan Times.
Tension escalated after an incident on 31 March when a group of non-Kashmiri students clashed with their Kashmiri counterparts who were allegedly celebrating India’s defeat to the West Indies in the World T20 semifinals.
Since then, the situation on the campus has deteriorated—outstation students demanded the campus be shifted out of Srinagar after the police allegedly thrashed hundreds of non-Kashmiri pupils chanting Bharat Mata ki jai and waving the tricolour.
