New Delhi: Supreme Court today issued a notice to the 10 states along with the Central government to ensure Kashmiris living across the country do not face harassment, attacks or social boycott.
The apex court also seeks their response on a plea seeking its intervention to prevent alleged attacks on Kashmiri students in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack.
The bench stated that “The chief secretaries, the DGPs and the Delhi Police Commissioner are directed to take prompt and necessary action to prevent incidents of threat, assault, a social boycott against Kashmiris and other minorities.”
The 10 states are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh, Meghalaya, Haryana, Bihar, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Punjab and Maharashtra.
The bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi was hearing a petition filed by the Supreme Court advocate Tariq Adeeb on Thursday along with a request for an urgent hearing.
The bench stated that the police officers who were appointed as nodal officers to deal with incidents of mob lynching will now be responsible to deal with cases of alleged assault on Kashmiris.
The Home Ministry was told by the apex court to give wide publicity of the nodal officers’ contact details so that those who need help can approach them easily.
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) also issued notices to the Union Home Secretary and the Secretary, Union Ministry of Human Resource Development seeking reports over “ill-treatment of Kashmiris” in the aftermath of Pulwama terror attack.
This comes in the wake of incidents of violence against Kashmiris in some parts of the country after a CRPF convoy in Pulwama was attacked in which 49 CRPF personnel died.
In the deadliest terror attack on security forces in Kashmir, 49 CRPF personnel were killed when their convoy was targeted in Pulwama district on the Srinagar-Jammu National Highway. Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) has claimed responsibility for the attack.