After 20 girls were forced to lock themselves in hostel rooms in Dehradun on Saturday night, police force was ... Read More

Kashmiri students studying outside their state are feeling the fallout of last Thursday's attack. Violence, or the threat of it, has forced many of them to leave the towns in which they were studying. But, in cities like Mohali, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Dehradun, there was sympathy, and help, from local populations.

In Dehradun, 20 girls were forced to lock themselves in their hostel rooms till police arrived, while Aligarh Muslim University proctor Mohsin Khan confirmed that a verbal advisory had been issued to provosts of student hostels asking them to tell Kashmiri students to stay put and "not move out of the campus". He described it as a precautionary measure taken after protests in several parts of Aligarh .

Rashid Pahelwan, a member of Dehradun zila panchayat from Lakshmipur, who claimed to have received calls from several Kashmiri students on Saturday, arranged for vehicles to pick up students and take them to safer places. TOI visited one of the houses the students had been taken to, in Selaqui, and found over 40 students in 10 rooms on the first floor of the building. "They travelled hundreds of miles to study in our city ... I felt that the entire student population from Kashmir shouldn't be targeted because of a few people," Rashid said .

In Hyderabad, several people and social outfits tweeted that their doors were open to Kashmiri students. Sibani Sahu, a solutions architect whose message garnered over 793 retweets and 2,252 likes in 24 hours, had posted: "I live in #Hyderabad, some #Kashmiris I know trade in #Shilparaman area. Spoke to a few, most are hell scared. I announce this openly: My home is open to any #Kashmiri who isn't feeling safe in the city." Many others posted their mobile numbers and addresses.

The 20 girls who had locked themselves in their hostel rooms at Suddhowala, Dehradun district, denied allegations by local residents and activists that they had raised "pro-Pakistan" and "anti-India" slogans; they were assured of their safety by their teachers and SP (city) Shweta Chaubey. "All of you have my personal phone number. I will take you all out shopping if you want. It's your city and no one can make you leave Dehradun," she told the girls.

Rahul Pundir, a relative of BJP's Sahaspur MLA Sahdev Singh Pundir, who was at the protest in Suddhowala, claimed the girls had raised "pro-Pakistan and anti-India" slogans from the terrace during a candle-lit march by locals. He said the situation was defused "when the girls apologised and touched the feet of a few elders in the locality". Tahira Ali, one of the girls, refuted the allegations of insensitive sloganeering. "We called police, which arrived immediately but failed to disperse the mob. We were so scared that we were not able to open our room or go out to have any food."

The situation in Punjab was similar. Amid incidents of Kashmiris being assaulted, students in Jalandhar restricted their movements apprehending trouble. The police, meanwhile, had procured lists of Kashmiri students and their addresses and increased vigil around their PGs and educational institutions.

