NEW DELHI: Kashmiris studying in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) have threatened to leave for their homes on Oct 17, if the sedition charges against three of them are not dropped, The Hin­dustan Times reported on Sunday.

In a letter to AMU vice chancellor, AMU student union former vice president Sajjad Rathar said if the vilification did not stop, more than 1,200 Kashmiri students would leave for their homes on Oct 17 as a last option.

Three students have been accused of shouting anti-India slogans in protest against the death of a former PhD student of AMU who was killed in Kashmir recently.

Terming the slapping of sedition charges as “vendetta”, Mr Rathar said, “The option of holding Namaz-i-Janaza (prayer meeting) in absentia was dropped after the AMU authorities did not give the permission.”

“If no prayer meeting was held as confirmed by all official agencies, the slapping of a case of sedition against three Kashmiri students is simply a vendetta, harassment and denial of justice,” he said.

The letter was handed over to AMU Proctor Mohsin Khan in presence of a large number of Kashmiri students at his office on Saturday night, the newspaper said.

AMU spokesman Shafay Kidwai, however, denied the Kashmiri students’ charges of harassment and stressed that “no innocent would be framed”.

The students were booked on sedition charges for allegedly raising “anti-India” slogans and trying to hold a prayer meeting for Manan Bashir Wani on Oct 12.

Twenty-seven-year-old Wani, who was purusing a PhD course in Allied Geology, had quit the university and joined the resistance ranks in January this year. He was killed by Indian forces at Shatgund village in the Handwara area on Thursday.

Published in Dawn, October 15th, 2018