The striking nursing students on Wednesday threatened to shut services in the Valley hospitals if their classmate arrested on charges of aiding militant is not released at the earliest.Reports reaching news gathering agency Global News Service said that dozens of students of SKIMS nursing college this morning assembled outside the Director’s office and staged a protest over the arrest of their classmate Iqbal Ahmad Rather. The protesting students alleged that Iqbal has been made a ‘scapegoat’ in an attack carried out by Jaish militants in Jhajjar Kotli along the Srinagar-Jammu highway last week.The protesting students carrying placards and banners and shouting slogans said that they won’t call off protests unless their classmate is released.The protesters said that police were not coming out with any concrete evidence against the detained youth. “Police says we believe that Iqbal may be involved. If police isn’t sure, why have they arrested an innocent student?” Shaila Qureshi, a protester told GNS.“His career is being been ruined. Why isn’t police shifting him to Srinagar or releasing him on bail,” she added.
Shaila said that the students will not attend classes or sit in examinations until their classmate is released. The students, she said will intensify the protests if Iqbal continues to remain under detention.We can’t be mute spectators to the grave injustice being done to our classmate. We know him for years and we know he is innocent,” Shaila said.Nusrat, another protester said that Iqbal was handed over to the police by a truck driver on the highway just because he was a Kashmiri.“He has been arrested on flimsy ground. If police had evidence, they would have by now made it public as they often do so,” she said.Nusrat said that the students will shut down the services in the government-run hospitals since the nurses association and students of other nursing colleges have extended their support in this matter.“We will lockdown hospitals, we will protest outside secretariat. We will do everything to ensure that our bright classmate is not victimized,” she said.Later, the protesting students took out the protest march from the SKIMS Director’s office to the nearby nursing college. (GNS)