SC asked 10 states to ensure Kashmiris living across the country don’t face social boycott or attacks

New Delhi: The Supreme Court of India asked 10 states to take prompt action to ensure Kashmiris living across the country don’t face any social attacks.

After the deadliest attack in Pulwama, the Kashmiris living across the country faced boycotts and attacks in several states.

Following the attacks on Kashmiris, Supreme Court Advocate Tariq Adeeb filed a petition in an attempt to seek protection of Kashmiris living across the country.

The top court has asked Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Meghalaya, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Punjab and Maharashtra to take prompt action to ensure Kashmiris living across the country don’t face any social attacks.

“The chief secretaries, the DGPs and the Delhi Police Commissioner are directed to take prompt and necessary action to prevent incidents of threat, assault, social boycott etc against Kashmiris and other minorities,” a bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said.

The court told the Home Ministry to give wide publicity of the nodal officers’ contact details so that those who need help can approach them easily.

In a recent incident which took place in Uttarakhand capital Dehradun, Kashmiri students lock themselves in hostel rooms fearing from the angry mob which surrounded the hostel premises.

“We are up to 20 girls and we have locked ourselves inside our hostel rooms. Hundreds of people have surrounded our hostel. Many of them have lathis and stones. We have switched off the lights”, a 24-year-old Kashmiri girl student studying MSc Zoology in the Dolphin Institute, quoted as saying in a media report.

The top court also said that police officers who were appointed as nodal officers to deal with incidents of mob killings will now be responsible to deal with cases of alleged assault on Kashmiris.