Kashmiri Students Allegedly Attacked in Punjab College After India Loses to Pak in Cricket Match

Kashmiri students at an engineering college in Punjab's Sangrur alleged that they were assaulted late on Sunday night soon after India lost in the T20 World Cup match against Pakistan.

Punjab police officials, who reached the campus following the incident, said that the situation at Bhai Gurudas Institute of Engineering and Technology in Sangrur had been brought under control, the NDTV reported.

In a widely shared video on social media, a Kashmiri student shows around a room that has been rampaged Sunday night and alleges they were attacked by students from Uttar Pradesh. "We were watching the match here. UP waale barged in. We came here to study. We are also Indian. You can see what was done to us. Are we not Indians? So what does Modi say?" he says in the video.

“We were in our hostel rooms when we heard some noise coming from outside. We went to see what is happening and saw some people attacking Kashmiri students in the other block. They had broken the window panes of their rooms and were continuously shouting ‘you are Pakistanis’,” Shoaib, a student from the engineering college, who claimed to have witnessed the incident told Free Press Kashmir.

Nasir Khuehami, spokesperson of the Jammu and Kashmir Students Association, said on Twitter that he had also received distress phone calls from Kashmiri students in another Punjab college. He further said that, “Kashmiri students who were assaulted in Sangur Punjab and Kharar Mohali, told me that they were rescued and saved by only locals and Punjabi students.”

Demanding arrest of the attackers, Khuehami said, “Such incidents have increased the sense of insecurity and anxiety among Kashmiri youth studying and working outside as well as among their parents and relatives in Kashmir.”

However, no police case has been filed regarding the incident so far, according to reports.

Meanwhile, former J&K chief minister Omar Abdullah took to Twitter saying, “It is distressing to hear about the incidents of physical & verbal assault against some Kashmiri students in a college in Punjab last night. I request @CHARANJITCHANNI ji to direct @PunjabPoliceInd to look in to this & also to reassure the students studying in Punjab.”