Angry Palestinian students protested against India’s growing friendship with Israel at a university campus on Tuesday while President Pranab Mukherjee was there, forcing cancellation of one of his engagements.
Hundreds of students shouted slogans and carried placards critical of India’s ties with the Jewish state while Mukherjee was being honoured by Al-Quds university at Abu Dis with an honorary degree and hailed as a “Knight of Peace”.
After the university function, Mukherjee was to inaugurate a secondary school for boys named after Jawaharlal Nehru. But the function was called off due to the tense situation.
Mukherjee soon left for Israel, a short journey by road, on the first-ever visit by an Indian President.