Srinagar, Feb 25: Parents of the students, who returned to the valley after a spate of attacks against Kashmiris in other states, are reluctant to send back their wards to the respective institutions.
In reaction to the Pulwama suicide attacks, Kashmiris, especially scores of students studying in various colleges outside J&K, were harassed and forced to leave the institutions they were enrolled in.
The incidents triggered a snowball effect as thousands of students, fearing they too may be attacked, made their journeys back home.
Even as the situation is relatively calmer now and the government of India has assured that Kashmiri students will not be harmed anywhere, the parents of these youth feel it is “too risky” to send them back as they cannot put their wards in danger again.
Srinagar resident Hashim Andrabi told The Kashmir Monitor that his son had a narrow escape from the goons in Dev Bhoomi College at Navgaon, Manduwala in Dehradun, where he was studying for his engineering degree.
“I will not allow my son to go back to that place. I cannot take that risk. We don’t have any guarantee for the safety of our children,” said Hashim, adding that his son had only two years left for completing his B.Tech in Civil Engineering.
“I would prefer him to take new admission in any course in Kashmir and study here,” he said.
Shaheena Pandith, whose daughter studied in Uttaranchal PG College, said: “My heart shudders thinking what could have happened with my daughter. She barely managed to escape from the angry mobs. Allah has brought her home safely but now we will not take the risk of sending her back.”
Shaheena said that after hearing the incidents of assault on innocent students, the parents have lost trust on the people outside Kashmir.
“They can do anything to our children,” she said.
Mudasir Hassan, who runs a consultancy, ‘Millennium School of Trainings and Technology’ in Pulwama and Srinagar, said: “Students are gripped in intense fear and mental stress and the behavior they have experienced in those states will surely dip the outflow. This will have a major impact on the coming session as majority of parents will not prefer to send their children to the colleges outside J&K.”
Ruhban Hussain, Director ‘Max Career Counseling Center’, claimed that around “one lakh students” from J&K are annually admitted through various consultancies in several colleges across India.
He said the harassments and assaults on Kashmiri students by the mobs will have a drastic impact on the outflow of students studying in other states.
“Even if some students agree, they will demand promises of proper safety in written form from the colleges to ensure no such incident will take place in future,” he said.
“Jammu and Kashmir career counselling association will collectively take the decision to blacklist Dehradun as more violence was reported from the place as compared to the other states,” he said.
Prof Maqsood Hussain, facilitator of Prime Minister’s Special Scholarship Scheme (PMSSS) at Amar Singh College, said that each year, under the scheme, around 5,000 students from Jammu and Kashmir are selected for various courses.
“I don’t want to speak about the impact on the students. We just facilitate the meetings for the PMSSS,” he said.
