As local goons gathered outside one of Dehradun’s best girls’ hostels and demanded an apology from Kashimiri girls for allegedly shouting “Pakistan zindabad”, the students locked themselves up in their rooms. Kashmiri girls on Saturday said a mob had assembled outside their hostel and were threatening them to vacate the hostel they were living in.
Following the recent terror attack in Kashmir’s Pulwama district in which at least 40 CRPF troopers were killed after a local youth rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into their bus, Kashmiri students are reportedly facing harassment in several places across the country.
A 24-year-old student from the Valley pursuing MSc Zoology in Dolphin Institute, who was amongst the girls trapped in the room, told a national daily on the condition of anonymity: “We are up to 20 girls and we have locked ourselves inside our hostel rooms. Hundreds of people have surrounded our hostel. Many of them have lathis and stones. We have switched off the lights. We asked the police for help and they came here, but they are asking us to face the mob and apologise. What should we apologise for? They are calling us traitors, but we haven’t done anything to be called that. We can’t open the door. We are very scared. We have no one to ask for help.”
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The students who had locked themselves in their rooms fearing attacks from the mob urged upon the government to airlift them so that they can be safe.
This came a day after 12 Kashmiri students were attacked by members of right wing outfits in the city and asked to “leave the city within 24 hours.”
