The Supreme Court on Friday directed the Central Government and 10 states to prevent attacks on Kashmiris in the aftermath of the Pulwama terror attack.
The 10 states are Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Meghalaya, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Punjab and Maharashtra.
A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi directed nodal officers to take steps to prevent acts of intimidation, threat, assault and social boycott against Kashmiris and other minorities in the wake of the attack.
“We have also gone through the advisories issued by the Home Ministry to the Chief Secretaries and the DGPs of all states. These advisories already issue shall be reiterated from Time to time. The Chief Secretaries, the DGPs and the Police Commissioner of Delhi are directed to take prompt and necessary action to prevent all incidents of threat, assault, social boycott and other coercive acts in the aftermath of the terrorist attack of February 14”, the bench headed by the CJI was quoted as saying by Live Law.
The petitioner, Tariq Adeeb who is also a lawyer, had sought from the apex court directions to authorities concerned to take action to stop assaults on students from Kashmir Valley taking place at different educational institutions across the country.
The plea sought direction to the Centre and other authorities to immediately set up a nation-wide helpline number and to establish a web site containing the contact details of the nodal officers appointed in politically-sensitive districts who are responsible for maintaining law and order.
“There is a sudden rise in the incidents of crimes against Muslims and Kashmiris after the Pulwama terrorist attack on February 14 in which over 40 soldiers were killed… Immediately after the attack, mobs and vigilante groups engaged in vitriolic hate speech and began attacking, and threatening Muslims and Kashmiris throughout the country,” said the petition.
“These incidents are a part of an organised hate campaign against the Muslims and Kashmiris. The extremist groups have led vigilante mob attacks across the country to enforce nationalism by leaders of various groups who claim to promote and instigated hate crimes,” the petition said.
He had also mentioned controversial tweets by Meghalaya Governor Tathagata Roy who had made a call to boycott “everything Kashmiri”.
Roy, a serial offender, had also asked people to avoid travelling to the valley.