Kashmir Digits

After the lawyers’ associations in Agra decided not to provide legal assistance to the three Kashmiri students who were charged with sedition for allegedly supporting Pakistan after their win over India in the T20 World Cup, advocate Madhuvan Dutt Chaturvedi of Mathura has agreed to defend the students after one of the families contacted him.

Chaturvedi said, “We will move a bail application for the students in the Agra court soon,” he said.

Chaturvedi is fighting the case of 26-year-old Ph.D scholar Atiq-ur Rehman, Masood Ahmad and Mohammad Alam, who were booked for sedition and under UAPA along with journalist Siddique Kappan while going to meet the family of the Hathras victim.

The students were booked on Wednesday for “promoting enmity, committing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony, making statements conducting public mischief” and for cyber terrorism, an offence that could lead to a life sentence.

Charges of sedition were added a day later.

Meanwhile, the Jammu & Kashmir Students’ Association has prepared a list of colleges across the country where Kashmiri students are ‘unnecessarily being harassed’ and urged the respective state governments to blacklist them.