2 December 2023

On 27th November 2023, seven students from Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology of Kashmir (SKUAST-K), Srinagar were charged with the draconian UAPA law and arrested for allegedly celebrating the Indian men’s cricket team’s loss in the finals of the ICC Cricket World Cup. The students, Umer, Asif, Mohsin, Tauqeer, Khalid, Sameer and Ubaid, are all final year students and residents of Kashmir. The use of this so-called “anti-terror” law has been justified in the case of these students by the Jammu and Kashmir Police with the claim by the police that this is the implementation of a “softer provision” of the UAPA, i.e. Section 13 of the Act. Section 13 deals with inciting or advising unlawful activities and comes with a 7-year jail term if convicted. The police has also claimed that the students were intending to “intimidate” students who supported the Indian men’s cricket team and hence they have also charged them with Indian Penal Code’s Section 505 (public mischief) and 506 (criminal intimidation). The use of UAPA by the Indian state in a question of which sports team individuals support and celebrate is an absolutely absurd use of a draconian law at the service of pushing the agenda of Brahmanical Hindutva fascism.

The Indian state has had a longstanding contradiction with the exercise of Kashmiri people’s right to self-determination and have violated all principles of international conventions that it is party to in a bid to curb this assertion of the people of Kashmir. Since the abrogation of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, the Indian state has intensified its onslaught onto the lives of the people in Kashmir, through long-standing media blackouts, firing of pellet guns onto peaceful protestors, abductions of people in the name of curbing resistance to Indian army’s occupation and militarization of the Kashmir valley and the demolition of even the token state government that the Indian state had given the people of Kashmir in the name of “special status Since 2019, the Brahmanical Hindutva fascist project has pushed the settlement of persons from parts of India into Kashmir valley, in the name of providing them employment and settlement and have even armed some villages to create militia forces to do their bidding. This process is akin to the providing of arms by the Indian state in Manipur to foster the violence in another oppressed nationality as well as the Salwa Judum militia created by the Indian state for its war on people in mineral-rich regions. In this case, the complaint was made by a Punjabi student who the police claims was made uncomfortable with the choice of sports team of the seven Kashmiri students. In another incident in October this year, a student in Bandipora had her hijab snatched at by a government school teacher. UAPA’s implementation is far and wide in Kashmir, with The Kashmir Walla editor Fahad Shah being just released this month after 21 months in prison for writing an article against the brutalities of the Indian state in Kashmir. Incredulously, the Indian state is attempting to normalize the use of the draconian UAPA law on any situation where it arbitrary decides ‘anti-national’ activities were conducted, which even include social media status updates in support of Palestinian national liberation as shown by the arrests made for such updates. The Zionist state of Israel is also known to arrest Arab residents in its occupied territories for making any social media posts remotely conceivable to be in support of Palestinian national liberation. The Brahmanical Hindutva fascist government is marching toe-to-toe with the Zionist state in this aspect as suppresses oppressed nationalities and wages its war on people through these scare tactics.

Campaign Against State Repression (CASR) vehemently condemns the use of the draconian UAPA legislature on Kashmiri students for the sake of curbing their democratic rights.

CASR demands the immediate release of all seven students of Sher-e-Kashmir University and demands the repeal of UAPA.

CAMPAIGN AGAINST STATE REPRESSION (CASR)

Constitutents: (AIRSO, AISA, AISF, APCR, BASF, BSM, Bhim Army, Bigul Mazdoor Dasta, bsCEM, CEM, CRPP, CTF, Disha, DISSC, DSU, DTF, Forum Against Repression Telangana, Fraternity, IAPL, Innocence Network, Karnataka Janashakti, LAA, Mazdoor Adhikar Sangathan, Mazdoor Patrika, Morcha Patrika, NAPM, NBS, Nishant Natya Manch, Nowruz, NTUI, People’s Watch, Rihai Manch, Samajwadi Janparishad, Smajwadi Lok Manch, Bahujan Samjavadi Manch, SFI, United Against Hate, United Peace Alliance, WSS, Y4S)