Srinagar: The Jammu and Kashmir police have arrested a Kashmir University student hailing from south Kashmir’s Shopian district in a case registered against him in 2018.
Aqib Ahmad Malik, a second-semester student of Bio-Chemistry at the premier educational institute of the valley, had been summoned by police for questioning in a case related to unlawful activities registered in 2018.
Mr. Malik is a resident of Aglar, Pinjora area of south Kashmir’s Shopian district. Speaking to The Kashmir Walla, Mr. Malik’s brother Yawar Mushtaq said, “He told us about being summoned to the police station in Srinagar on Thursday evening, later he went there on Friday, where he was arrested.”
Superintendent of police, Hazratbal, Sudhanshu Verma while speaking to The Kashmir Walla said that Mr. Malik has been booked under a proper case. “There is no ill motive, it is a proper case,” he said.
“A case vide number 68/2018 under section 13 of Unlawful Activities Act (UAPA) stands registered at Nigeen police station. The role of the student has been established and subsequently he has been detained,” an unnamed official was quoted as saying by a local news gathering agency Kashmir News Trust (KNT).
A day before getting arrested on Friday, Mr. Malik sent a note to The Kashmir Walla, giving details of the police summons and also accused the Kashmir University of destroying his career. “In February 2020, I was arrested under preventive detention act 107/151 and kept in central jail for a period of eight days and after that restriction was imposed on me to enter the campus for at least twenty days,” Mr. Malik writes in the note.
Accusing Kashmir university of destroying his career
Mr. Malik further alleged that in 2017 he was threatened by the university officials that he “will be picked by security agencies.”
“In 2018, I was summoned by Nigeen police station under FIR 68 unlawful act sec 13,” writes Mr. Malik. “In 2017, I was elected as proctor of SA boys hostel Zakura by students and I did my best to help students. But that didn’t go well with the university officials and they started harassing me more. They didn’t allow me to appear in my second semester tests, citing shortage in attendance as reason, but that was never the case. I lost two years of my academic career. I’m still in second semester after four years.”
Summoned in 2019 also, he adds that he “stood up against corruption and backdoor entries in the university, which didn’t go well with the university authorities. Instead of supporting me they started harassing me and charged me with different cases.”
Mr. Malik said that even when the COVID-19 pandemic has engulfed the world, “I am summoned by police station Nigeen and I don’t even know the reason.”
However, the university authorities have denied all of Mr. Malik’s allegations against them. Speaking to The Kashmir Walla, the registrar of the university, Nisar Ahmad Mir, said that nothing of this sort has happened. “Why would anyone destroy his career?,” he said. “There is a policy of hostel. We cannot keep a student in the hostel forever. He had availed the hostel facility while he was studying law in the university.”