Mehbooba, Omar welcome SC direction to states to take action against assault on Kashmiris

Former Jammu and Kashmir Chief Ministers Mehbooba Mufti and Omar Abdullah on Friday welcomed the Supreme Court's directive to 11 states to take "prompt" action to prevent incidents of threat, assault and social boycott of Kashmiris in the aftermath of the Pulwama attack.

Seeking a response from the states, the apex court directed their chief secretaries and director generals of police to take "prompt" and necessary action to prevent such incidents from happening.

"Relieved about the SC order to ensure Kashmiri students based outside J&K are not harassed or face social boycott. Shameful that the honourable judiciary took decisive action where others conveniently turned a blind eye," PDP chief Mehbooba wrote on Twitter.

National Conference vice president Abdullah added that he was grateful to the Supreme Court for doing what the government at the Centre should have done.  

"Grateful to the Hon Supreme Court of India for doing what our elected leadership in Delhi should have been doing. The union HRD minister was busy living in denial & a Governor was busy issuing threats. Thank goodness the Hon SC stepped in," Abdullah said in a tweet.

The chief secretaries and DGPs of Maharashtra, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jammu and Kashmir, Haryana, Meghalaya, West Bengal, Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand, and the Delhi Police commissioner have been directed by the apex court to prevent incidents of "threat, assault and social boycott" of Kashmiris, including students.

A bench headed by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi also directed that the police officers, who were earlier appointed as nodal officers to deal with lynching incidents, would now be responsible to deal with cases of assaults on Kashmiris.

The bench was hearing a plea of Tariq Adeeb seeking a direction to the Centre and the states to prevent incidents of assaults, threats and social boycott of Kashmiris in the wake of the February 14 Pulwama terror attack in which 40 CRPF personnel were killed.