J&K NIT students' beaten up for trying to leave campus, Centre sends team

New Delhi: The HRD Ministry is sending a two-member team to NIT Srinagar campus on Wednesday, which has been gripped by tension following clashes among students over the Indian cricket team's loss against West Indies in the T20 World Cup last week.

"The Ministry has decided to send a two-member team comprising a Director and a Deputy Secretary rank officer, who will listen to the students there," a senior official said.

Unrest was witnessed again on Tuesday at the campus with outstation students expressing a sense of insecurity and attempting to leave the campus, leading to a confrontation with police, which resorted to lathicharge in which some were injured.

Read: Unrest at NIT Srinagar; outstation students protest, lathicharged

With the situation being tense, CRPF was last night deployed at campus and Jammu and Kashmir government assured full security to the students from other states studying here.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh also called up Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti and discussed with her the situation at NIT.

On Friday last, the campus had witnessed clashes between local and outstation students over India's defeat in the semi-final match in the World T20 tournament.

Read: NIT Srinagar shuts down after clashes over India's defeat

After the clashes, the NIT authorities had shut down the institute, which was reopened on Tuesday.

"We take responsibility all the students of the country studying in NIT. We have put in place all the measures," the Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh had said yesterday.

Administration has held meeting with the NIT students to resolve the issue, Singh said, adding SSP Srinagar is camping in the area to ensure peace.

He said the outstation students are demanding security and postponement of exams. "Director of NIT has said that the demands have been accepted," he said.

Meanwhile, leaders across the political spectrum condemned the police action against students.

Alleging that students are being ‘targeted’ across the country, Deputy Chief Minister Manish Sisodia said when countries across the world are building their future in colleges, ‘we are probably the only country’ where students are being lathicharged on ‘daily basis’.

Kejriwal tweeted that BJP is beating those who are ‘chanting Bharat Mata ki Jai’ in Kashmir, while doing the same against those "who are not" raising the slogan in the rest of the country.

"Lathi charge on students in Srinagar is highly condemnable. BJP-PDP must stop this immediately," the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) chief tweeted.

AAP has questioned the PDP-BJP coalition government in Jammu and Kashmir saying it betrays ‘duplicity’ on the part of the saffron party.

"From Kashmir to Kanyakumari, students are being targeted in such a way that it seems they lie at the root of all the problems being faced the country," Sisodia, who holds the education portfolio in Delhi, tweeted.

Former J&K Chief Minister Omar Abdullah described CRPF deployment in the institution as 'abnormal', asserting that the situation called for tact not force.

Abdullah took to Twitter and expressed dismay over the presence of CRPF in NIT campus.

"TWO companies of CRPF in a campus is not normal by any stretch of imagination. Requires tact not use of force," tweeted Abdullah.