Good Samaritans encourage Kashmiri students to stay put

Dr Inderjot Singh’s phone has not stopped ringing since Saturday. Whether day or night, he has been on calls constantly. “I have not slept a wink for the past four days,” he says.

He is one of the liaisoning officers tasked by the government to help distressed students from Kashmir who have been working overtime to redress their grievance in an “amicable” way — from accommodating PG students into a hostel or organising community meals in hostels.

Singh, who is handling Chandigarh, Punjab, Haryana and Himachal Pradesh, has attended countless calls from more than 1000 students from City Beautiful and its neighbouring states since Saturday, with almost all of them requesting to be sent back home. “I have counselled them personally and over the phone to drop the idea of going back and carry on with their studies. Our purpose is to assimilate them back into the system instead of sending them back home where the current situation is more volatile,” he told DNA. “Parents also called be from Kashmir and advised the same thing to them — discourage your wards from coming back home. All of us are with them,” he stated.

The Chandigarh officer was also instrumental in shifting over 100 students of MM College, Mulana living in rented accommodation to the campus after a video surfaced of the village headman allegedly asking them to vacate the premises. “We are trying to soothe frayed nerves, reiterating to students that this exodus is unfounded and there is nothing to fear,” Singh said.

He further said in places where tension was simmering, they held lunches and dinners in hostels encouraging students from other communities to interact with Kashmiri students.

Bangalore liaisoning officer Zia-ud-Rehman has adopted a similar approach. “We are talking them out of going back to Kashmir. They do not have to worry at all. After the four students were booked for sedition, I advised them to deactivate their social media profiles for some time. The college authorities also stepped in and asked all Kashmiri students to surrender their phones with them as a preemptive measure towards their security,” Rehman said.

Meanwhile, a group of citizens issued a statement on Tuesday, reaching out to parents in Kashmir, assuring them that “no extraordinary situation exists”, asking them to not call back their children en masse. The civil society group also appealed to the nation to act in the spirit of brotherhood, unity and fraternity, urging people who have gone back to Kashmir to come back and resume their work, studies etc.