JAMMU: The brazen deception of Bharatiya Janata Party came to fore on April 12, when Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad closed its doors for panic stricken NIT students, who fled from Srinagar in the wake of threat and intimidation by anti-national elements besides ‘harassment’ by Jammu and Kashmir Police.
Sources told STATE TIMES that ABVP, at the behest of local BJP leadership including senior ministers in the Mehbooba Mufti led PDP-BJP Government, refused to lodge hapless students at their Parade ground complex in Jammu, late night of April 12 when they fled from the Valley. Sources revealed that this was done on the directions of a Jammu based senior most minister of BJP, who was one time ABVP activist and a Swayamsevak.
Strange but true! The shabby treatment was meted out to youth who braved hostile atmosphere on April 1, 2016 and unfurled Tricolour to counter a seditious group of local students who were celebrating Indian defeat by chanting anti-India slogans and raising Pak flags. The pro-Indian students were mercilessly beaten by the Jammu and Kashmir police inside the campus. Many of them were admitted to Bone and Joint Hospital, Srinagar for treatment when a senior BJP minister termed the barbaric police action as mild lathi-charge.
On 12 April, 300 to 400 non local NIT Srinagar students managed to reach Jammu as they vacated the campus and wanted to return to their houses.
As they needed some place for night stay, many of them approached ABVP Office Jammu. However, they were denied permission to stay.
“A senior minister has directed us not to accommodate NIT students,” an ABVP official told the NIT students, who then approached several youth organizations. Team Jammu-a non political organization, fighting to curb drugs menace in Jammu, came to the rescue of these students. At midnight, they were accommodated in Gurdwara Bibi Chand Kour, Ram Mandir Purani Mandi, Amar Kshaitrya Rajput Sabha and Agarsen Dharmshalla.
“Youth associated with Team Jammu managed food for the NIT students. Strangely, police kept asking why we were helping the NIT students,” told a Team Jammu member to STATE TIMES.
NIT Srinagar became centre of controversies when some local NIT students raised anti Indian and pro Pakistan slogans after Indian defeat to West Indies in T20 World Cup on March, 31, 2016. In retaliation, outstation students hoisted national flag and raised slogans like Bharat Mata Ki Jai.
Police restored to lathi-charge and brutally injured over 80-students. Later, the non local students boycotted the classes and exams and requested Ministry of Human Resources Development (MHRD) to shift the NIT to Jammu or to some other State.
Currently, NIT students are protesting at Jantar Mantar, New Delhi, demanding HRD Minister Smriti Irani to hoist National flag at NIT Srinagar as per the commitment made to hoist tricolor at every central varsity.
The NIT students are demanding mass migration to other NITs. NIT Kurukshetra and NIT Hamirpur have extended their support to the non local students of NIT Srinagar.