Students March in Protest Against NIA Summons to Kashmir University Scholar

SRINAGAR: Amid pro-freedom and anti-India slogans, hundreds of students today marched on the campus and later staged a protest demonstration against the summoning of a University of Kashmir scholar by the National Investigations Agency in ‘terror funding’ case.

Aala Fazili, a resident of Srinagar’s Humhama locality who is pursuing PhD in Pharmacy from the Varsity, has been detained by the NIA after he appeared for questioning yesterday in connection with the case, in which separatists, a prominent businessman and a photojournalist have been arrested.

Carrying banners depicting messages of solidarity with Aala, dozens of agitated students marched on the campus and later assembled outside the Humanities Block where they shouted anti-India, anti-NIA slogans and pro-freedom slogans.

“India is using NIA as a new weapon of war to intimidate and silence those who are speaking against the brutalities of forces. Such tactics have not worked in past and they will not work now,” a student, who didn’t want to be named, said.

The protest demonstration was organised by the Kashmir University Students Union, “India can’t cow down students. If Aala is not released immediately, KUSU will organise state wide protests and government will be responsible for the outcome,” a report quoted KUSU spokesperson as saying.

The NIA has arrested middle-rung Hurriyat leaders including Altaf Shah, the son-in-law of veteran Hurriyat leader Syed Ali Geelani, Ayaz Akbar, Geelani’s spokesman, Shahid-ul-Islam, the political advisor of Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, among other in the case which was registered on May 30.

Police sources said some of the students leaders linked to the two unions running in the Varsity, including the one with links to a legislator from north Kashmir, have also been questioned in connection with “stone pelting incidents” during 2016 unrest and more students will be questioned.

According to NIA, some prominent separatists, including unidentified Hurriyat members, have been accused of collusion with Hizbul Mujahideen, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Lashkar-e-Toiba and other outfits for “raising, receiving and collecting funds through various illegal means, including hawala, for funding separatist and terrorist activities in Jammu and Kashmir”.

The Hurriyat has rubbished the charges, alleging that the agency was being “used by New Delhi” to “defame the genuine political struggle” of people of Jammu and Kashmir.

(Cover Photograph: Representational image courtesy Greater Kashmir)