Srinagar, Mar 15: Kashmiri students studying in London heckled Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid during a lecture by the Minister on Challenges to Indian Democracy at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) University of London. The interruption forced the moderator to cut short the debate. The students who heckled the Indian foreign minister and talked about the sedition charges leveled against the students who cheered for Pakistan. As the minister tried to defend himself, he said some of them opposed that is why the charges were withdrawn, however the students again interrupted the minister and objected his stand. “Charges were not withdrawn because you opposed it, charges were withdrawn because people supported that,” said the students. The video showing the part of the session where the foreign minister was heckled has gone viral on social networking site facebook and micro blogging site twitter. As the Minister Completed his speech, a Kashmiri student got up and talked about the human rights violations going in Kashmir. The student mocked the minister for ignoring the Kashmir issue during his speech. “India is holding Kashmir under occupation and there are so many human rights violations – I would be glad to know what you have to say about that now?” he questioned the minister. As the student completed his question, another Kashmiri female student again disrupted the minister and asked the minister to explain ‘what is democratic about India that there are seven lakh Indian troops in Kashmir’. As the student was counting the human rights violations in the valley, Salman Khurshid tried to pacify the student saying “At least you have my answer.” The foreign Minister said he too is concerned about the Kashmir issue and didn’t deliberately by-pass the Kashmir issue during his speech. On this the students responded “Yes. Because these are the failures”. Khurshid told the students that there are two points of view about Kashmir. He told the students that it is right to have a point of view. “I should not lose any coercion against you because you have a point of view that is different from mine.” To this the students again heckled the minister saying “But you do.” Khurshid said his view is that they have defined India in a particular way for themselves in 1947. He said today the second largest population of Muslims is in India. “It means if we don’t calm Kashmiris, you really want something to happen in India that will put a huge question mark on these.” He told the students to call him next time to discuss Kashmir issue. As the minister was saying this, moderator cut short the session and called for vote of thanks saying that the session needs to be concluded.
Posted on: Sun, 16 Mar 2014 02:12:50 +0000
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