NEW DELHI: The Supreme Court on Thursday agreed to hear a petition seeking its intervention to protect Kashmiris who are being targeted in different parts of the country in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack .

Appearing before a bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, senior advocate Colin Gonsalves asked that the petition be heard urgently and requested the court to list the case for Thursday itself. But the CJI said it was neither “possible nor needed” that the matter be taken up on Thursday but assured that the case would be heard. The matter has been listed for today.

Referring to reports of incidents in different states where “mobs and vigilante groups engaged in vitriolic hate speech and began attacking and threatening Muslims and Kashmiris”, the petition said the Centre and state governments had not been effective in curbing such incidents. “On the contrary, it would appear that the respondents may even be sympathising with the mobs,” the petition said.

“The incidents that have happened are not isolated or unconnected. The conspiracy invariably begins at the top where politically senior persons and senior religious leaders have instigated their followers to attack and kill Muslims and Kashmiris,” the petition said.

