AMU Sedition Row 2 Kashmiri students’ suspension revoked

Guv Malik talks to HRD Min, VC

ALIGARH: The stand-off between the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) administration and Kashmiri students has finally ended after the university revoked the suspension of two Kashmiri students of the three who were suspended for planning a prayer meeting for slain terrorist Mannan Wani.

The revocation came hours after Governor Satya Pal Malik this morning spoke to Union Minister for Human Resource Development, Prakash Javadekar and Vice-Chancellor of the AMU, Prof Tariq Mansoor and urged them to ensure that the issue is amicably resolved at the earliest.

In the evening, a varsity official said, the AMU revoked the suspension of two Kashmiri students, as "no credible evidence" of their participation in any "unlawful assembly" in the campus was found.

AMU spokesman Sahafay Kidwai said that the suspension of AMU research scholars Wasim Ayub Malik and Abdul Hasib Meer was revoked after "they were exonerated by a three-member enquiry committee of the University".

"No credible evidence was found against the two students," Prof Kidwai said.

Malik and Meer, hailing from Kashmir, were suspended Friday for allegedly participating in an aborted Namaaz-e-Janaza (prayer meeting) in the university campus for a slain Hizbul Mujahideen militant, Manan Bashir Wani.

Twenty seven-year-old Wani, pursing a PhD course in Allied Geology at the AMU, had quit the university and joined militant ranks in January this year.

He was killed in an encounter at Shatgund village in Handwara area of north Kashmir's Kupwara district last Thursday.

Malik and Meer, besides one unknown person were also booked by police on sedition charges for allegedly raising "anti-India" slogans and trying to hold a prayer meeting for Wani.

The investigations by the police in this matter are still on.

The Kashmiri students studying at the AMU had on Sunday also threatened to leave for their homes on October 17, if the sedition charges against three of them were not dropped.

Earlier in the morning, Governor Satya Pal Malik spoke to Union Minister Javadekar seeking his intervention to ensure smooth studies of the Kashmiri students at the AMU.

Governor also spoke to Vice-Chancellor of the AMU, Prof Tariq Mansoor in this regard.

Malik urged Javadekar and Prof Tariq to ensure that the issue is amicably resolved at the earliest and there is no disruption of studies of the Kashmiri students and they are allowed to continue their studies in a safe, secure and well-disposed academic environment.

Pertinently, the issue has already been taken up by the Governor’s Administration with the UP Government.