Kashmiris hold protests over expulsion of students

The people of Indian-administered Kashmir have held massive protest rallies in response to the expulsion of more than 60 Kashmiri students.

On Friday, angry protesters took to the streets and clashed with police in Srinagar and several other major cities across Kashmir.

The troops and police forces also fired pellets to quell the protests. Scores of people were reportedly injured in the crackdown across the disputed Himalayan valley.

Indian forces also detained at least a dozen activists of pro-independence Jammu-Kashmir Liberation Front (JKLF), including its leader Yasin Malik, to prevent the activists from marching to the city center in Srinagar.

“If India’s government and its civil society think that by ruining the careers of Kashmir students, by humiliating, torturing and killing Kashmiris, they can crush sentiments for independence, had it been the case, this independence movement would not have survived for 66 years,” Malik told a large crowd of protesters.

The developments come after Indian authorities announced the expulsion of the 66 students from Swami Vivekanand Subharti University in Uttar Pradesh state on Thursday.

The expelled students were also briefly threatened with sedition charges over cheering for Pakistan’s cricket team during a televised match against India. However, Indian authorities later said that the sedition charges against the students, which carry a possible life sentence, were dropped.

Kashmir lies at the heart of more than 65 years of hostility between India and Pakistan. Both neighbors claim the region in full but have partial control over it. Thousands of people have been killed in Kashmir over the past 20 years.