MUZAFFARABAD: The premises of the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Medical College (AJKMC) turned into a battleground on Wednesday after police resorted to the use of batons and teargas shells to quell a peaceful protest by students, leaving scores of them wounded.

In a social media post, an executive magistrate said many police personnel were also injured due to the ‘indiscriminate’ stone pelting by students after police were sent there to “rescue the besieged faculty members”.

Police had taken more than 50 students into custody amid allegations by the parents and colleagues that they were being mistreated in police stations.

Police were continuously raiding the boys’ hostel to apprehend other students accused of creating law and order problems.

According to students, they had been recording their protest for quite some time against a “flawed examination rule” that had cost many students an academic year, but to no avail.

On Wednesday morning, all students staged a sit-in outside the main gate of their college, after locking it out.

At about 11 am, acting principal and some faculty members invited some representatives of the striking students for talks, where, according to one student, they admitted the “legitimacy of the demands” but expressed their helplessness to resolve it.

According to witnesses, female students made a shield in front of the boys, who kept on asking police to stay away from the girls. Amid verbal assaults from both sides, a policeman dragged a student, triggering complete mayhem.

While the police resorted to use of batons and lobbed teargas shells, students retaliated with stone pelting. Some of them snatched batons from the police to respond to them in the same coin.

“It’s a highly condemnable incident. The college management and district administration could have resolved this issue peacefully but they resorted to an adventure,” said one parent, while declining to be named.

The college was due to close on June 24, but after the Wednesday’s incident the management sealed the boys’ hostel while the girls were asked to vacate their hostel by Thursday morning until next orders.

Published in Dawn, June 23rd, 2016