The UP government has reportedly initiated steps to withdraw sedition charge slapped on 66 Kashmiri students for allegedly celebrating Pakistan’s victory over India at Asia Cup cricket tournament.
After a clash with other students, the Kashmiri students were expelled from a private varsity in Uttar Pradesh's Meerut town, about 500 kilometers from here.
According to sources in the police department here, the state government has asked the Meerut administration to drop the sedition charge.
The move to drop the sedition charges came after Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah had telephonic talks with UP Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav during which he reportedly pressed Akhilesh for dropping the same, the sources said.
The sources said the state government did not want to ruin the career of the Kashmiri students as the sedition charge would have resulted in cancellation of their admission and would also have made it impossible for them to get admission elsewhere. Earlier in the day, a case of sedition under section 124 A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) along with cases under other sections were registered against the Kashmiri students.
Meerut police chief Omkar Singh said on Thursday that the case had been registered after the registrar of the varsity lodged a complaint with the police.
A group of Kashmiri students living at the hostel had burst crackers and distributed sweets on Monday after Pakistan’s victory much to the anger of the fellow students.
There was a scuffle between the students after some of them objected to the celebrations.
Later a group of students took out a procession within the varsity campus demanding action against the Kashmiri students, reports said.
The varsity administration later expelled 66 Kashmiri students all of whom lived at the hostel. They were asked to immediately vacate the hostel. There were around 200 Kshmiri students at the private varsity.
They were enrolled in engineering and other courses.
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