Kashmiri student assaulted on Barkatullah University campus in Bhopal

Sravani Sarkar

NewsBits.in

Bhopal: In a worrying incident, a Kashmiri Ph D scholar of Barkatullah University in Bhopal was assaulted on the university campus on Monday by a group of youth who allegedly told the victim that it was a reprisal for the ongoing violence in the valley.

The assaulted youth Umar Rashid, who is pursuing his doctoral course in Sociology at the University since last six years, has said that security personnel and others present near the spot of incident did not help him at all.

About two years ago, issue of misbehavior and violence with Kashmiri students of Barkatullah University had become an issue with the then chief minister of Jammu & Kashmir Omar Abdullah tweeting about it.

The victim Rashid on Monday alleged that he was hit by batons and kicked and punched by about a dozen youth near the Satya Bhavan, the administrative building of the BU at around 11.30am on Monday.

The matter was taken up with the university authorities only once activists of National Students’ Union of India (NSUI) reached the spot. They staged a dharna near the administrative building for quite some before registrar HS Tripathi met them.

State spokesman of NSUI Vivek Tripathi told NewsBits.in that they has urged the authorities to scan the CCTV footage to identify the assaulters (as Rashid did not recognize them) and then file FIR against them.

“We have also expressed concern and dissatisfaction over the quality of security on the campus and asked the registrar to review it. If action is not taken soon by university authorities we would go the agitation way,” Tripathi said.

He added that such incidents brought a bad name not only to the university but also to Madhya Pradesh as a state.