The police lathicharged the NIT students at Srinagar after they allegedly threw stones.
Highlights
- Out of state students demand exams be postponed
- Protesting students lathicharged after allegedly throwing stones at cops
- Home Minister Rajnath Singh speaks to Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti
The NIT campus in Srinagar -- which saw clashes last week among students after India exited the T20 World Cup -- is a high-tension zone again with students being lathi-charged by the police, paramilitary forces assigned for the night to guard the campus, and two Union ministers tweeting about the situation.
Students who are not from Jammu and Kashmir were heading for the main gate on Tuesday evening demanding that exams be postponed, when they were hit with batons by the police.
The police have claimed around 500 students were moving out of the main campus and had to be stopped. Sources said they were carrying the tricolour. The police said the mob then threw stones and attacked the officers and some students were injured in the melee.
Jitendra Singh, minister of state in Prime Minister's Office, who is from Jammu and Kashmir, tweeted::
Several students of Srinagar's NIT have been injured in the police lathicharge.
Chief minister Mehbooba Mufti, who took office on Monday, has been called by Home Minister Rajnath Singh, who tweeted:
NIT or the National Institute of Technology saw some Kashmiri students being attacked last week after they celebrated India's defeat to West Indies in the T20 World Cup. Classes had resumed from Monday and the human resources development ministry had also declared that the situation had become normal.
Deputy Chief Minister Nirmal Singh said Tuesday's trouble was not over the insider-outsider issue but more about exams. The paramilitary forces were deployed after a section of students indicated that they needed protection from the police.
The situation at the campus, Mr Singh said, "is normal now".
Earlier known as Regional Engineering College, the NIT has nearly 2,500 students and 400 academic staff members. A majority of the students come from outside the state.