Kashmiri students protest in Hyderabad against IOK lockdown

Monitoring Desk

SRINAGAR: Hundreds of Kashmiri students gathered outside the University of Hyderabad, India, to protest against state repression and continued lockdown in occupied Kashmir on Sunday.

Jammu and Kashmir Students Association (JKSA) members used poetry and revolutionary slogans to register their protest during their sit-in. JKSA President Hadif Nisar said the protest was about the many injustices that have been unleashed upon Kashmiris by successive Indian governments, Kashmir Media Service reported.

He said, “The only difference is that the Congress was doing it quietly while the BJP is very open about it.”

He highlighted the continued internet ban in Kashmir and said that people elsewhere in India can’t imagine life without internet even for five days. JKSA member Aakriti Suresh, a Kashmiri Pandit (KP) student, highlighted the problems faced by her community. She said the role the government had played in communalising the Kashmir issue cannot be ignored. “The way successive governments have pitched KPs against Kashmiri Muslims really exposes the grand conspiracy they have hatched in turning and then keeping forever Kashmir into a war zone. They were never interested in bringing a political solution to Kashmir on to the table.”

JKSA General Secretary Arman Kazmi said the fundamental question to discuss was if India really was a democracy. “How can disappearances, tortures, massacres and the idea of democracy exist simultaneously,” he asked.

JKSA member Maryam B. highlighted the problems faced by students of her community because of the internet ban.