HRD officials have announced the students of NIT can appear for exams later. As tension followed in the Srinagar campus, with atrocities as grave as female students threatened to be raped, a three-member team of the Human Resource Development Ministry visited the location and held talks with the agitating students. An official said, “There are students who want to appear later but a majority of them want to do it as per schedule. So an option will be given to them. Those who want to appear later, re-exams will be scheduled.”
Outstation students who engaged with the team said they wanted to go home for the time being, and appear for the exams later. They also forwarded their demands which included shifting the institute out of Kashmir and strict action against the policemen who indulged in lathicharge on April 4. The exams are scheduled to start next week. “The HRD team which has gone to the campus will stay there till the exams are concluded. The Jammu and Kashmir chief minister Mehbooba Mufti has also assured Union minister Smriti Irani that safety of all students will be ensured,” the officials said. Irani will also be visiting Srinagar on April 13 for a consultative committee meeting of Members of Parliament but there is no clarity on whether she will be going to NIT campus.
The team that reported to Srinagar looked into students' grievances, included Sanjeev Sharma, director (technical education) in the HRD ministry, deputy director finance Fazal Mehmood and chairman of board of governors of NIT M J Zarabi.
Even before the JNU row cooled down entirely, the National Institutes of Technology cooked itself a storm after India's semi-final defeat in the T20 World Cup. India's loss prompted some local students to rejoice and burst crackers, which led to protests by outstation students and ultimately resulted in clashes. With the campus split into Valley and non-Valley students, the incident saw “non-negotiable” demands which included the hoisting of the Tricolour at the campus main gate. Non-Valley students who proudly called themselves “Indian students”, confronted the NIT administration and the HRD team saying, “This is not India. We cannot live here. You will have to shift the college.”
The agitation saw the entire protocol; from protests, to boycotting of classes, to police induced inhumanities. Images and videos of students being beaten up boomed on the internet, reaching everybody's phones. In a disgusting allegation, a non-Kashmiri female student said a group of boys approached her saying, “If one of you gets raped, the rest will fall silent.” Another student, final year B-tech, said, “The police thrashed us like dogs. Pakistani flags were flown all over the campus even as non-J&K students are in majority. This is nothing new; this had been happening since long. This time it has come out in the open, thanks to social media. There are two hostels adjoining the boundary of the college, beyond which lies a local neighbourhood. The night we objected to celebrations of India's defeat in T20 World Cup semifinal, these people from beyond the wall started pelting stones at the hostel.”
The slew of incidents occurred at a time when Kashmir got its first female Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, as her PDP partnered with national party BJP. The Modi government faces flak, but this time, also by people who once swore by the party.
