In a second unsavoury incident of backlash after last week’s Pulwama terror attack, a journalist from Kashmir was beaten up by some unknown persons in Pune, even as three Yuv Sena office bearers were arrested by the local police at Yavatmal in eastern Maharashtra on Friday in connection with Wednesday’s assault on five Kashmiri students.
Zibran Nazeer, a copy editor working with a national English newspaper published from Pune, was roughed up by some unidentified persons. The Pune police have not yet identified the culprits behind the incident.
The Yavatmal police, meanwhile, arrested three Yuv Sena office bearers, including the one Ajinkya Motke, for allegedly beating up four Kashmiri students in Waghapur Road area of the eastern Maharashtra town.
On its part, the Shiv Sena has expelled from the party the Yuva Sena’s office-bears involved in the assault incident. In tweets put out on Friday, Yuva Sena president Aditya Thackeray said, “There was an unfortunate incident yest in Yavatmal, with some students of Jammu & Kashmir. The @ShivSena had issued a press note yesterday itself which hasn’t been printed today, may be to further sensationalise the issue or defame us, while ignoring our disciplinary action”
“As of last evening, the Party has sacked those involved in the act. J&K is a part of India and no Indian, or for that matter, nobody should face the brunt of anger that is towards terrorism. We understand the angst but it must be against terror, not innocent people,” Aditya added.
In all five Kashmiri students — identified as Umar Nazeer Ganai, Umar Rashid Dar, Tajimullah Ali, Owas Mushtaq and Amir Mulad — humiliated, beaten up and forced by Yuv Sena activists to raise slogans like “Vande Mataram”, “Hindustan zindabad” and “Bharatmata ki Jai” at Yavatmal on Wednesday night.
The victim students were from Dayabhai Patel College of Physical Education. The Yuv Sena activists accosted them near their rented homes in Waghapur Road area of the town and physically harassed them as a mark of “protest” against the Pulwama terror strike in which 44 CRPF jawans were killed. Two of the jawans from the neighbouring Buldhana district were among those killed in the Pulwama attack.
A clip of video footage shot by the Yuv Sena activists themselves went viral on social media on Thursday. The footage showed a local Yuv Sena leader beating the Kashmiri students and asking them questions like to from where they were, as to why they had come to Yavatmal and whether were they linked with terrorists. “What is your name? Why have you come here? You should not come here.... What connection do you with the terrorists there?... You relatives are killing our jawans there. Why have you come here? How many students are here like you in Yavatmal”.
The replies from a student like “I have to come to study here... I am the son of a doctor. I have not been to Kashmir for the last one and a half years...There are 15 to 20 Kashmiri students in Yavatmal ( the Yuv Sena leader tells the student: Tell them not to be here),” would not satisfy the Yuv Sena leader who continued to beat him and other students up.
The footage of the incident also showed the Yuv Sena leader order the victim Kashmiri students to raise slogans like “Hindustan Zindabad”, “Vande Mataram” and “Bharat Mata ki Jai”. The victim students readily obliged the Yuv Sena leader.
While the management of the college where the victims are studying had come out in support of them, the Yuva Sena had come in for sharp criticism from various quarters.
In a damage control exercise, Yuv Sena chief Aditya Thackeray had urged his supporters not to vent their anger against “people from our own country” all in the name of “showing their anger against Pakistan”.
“I think the outrage was against Pakistan and the need to give it a fitting reply is important… But we must ensure that this is not directed at our own citizens in any manner,” Aditya had said.
“What has happened is not proper and highly condemnable. If they are our members we would take action against them,” Yuva Sena secretary Varun Sardesai had said.