No protest can interrupt students’ career in J&K, says MoS Jitendra

As students in Kashmir appear for their board examinations from on Monday, Union Minister Jitendra Singh said that no form of protest has the right to “interrupt or interfere” with the career of children.

“As I said whatever be the cause, even if it is the holiest of the holy, for which the protest is being carried out, nobody has the right or prerogative to interfere or interrupt the career of children,” he told reporters here on Monday.

The annual board examinations is expected to be an acid test for the PDP-BJP coalition government in unrest-hit Jammu and Kashmir which announced the schedule for examinations despite opposition from various quarters, including the student community.

The Union Minister of State in the PMO said that the students in Kashmir have realised that the people instigating them for protests have their own children lodged in the best of educational institutions across the country and abroad.

“That is why they have come out on the streets asking for the schools to reopen. This has also exposed the duplicity of so-called Kashmir protagonists who try to instigate such kind of a situation because their own children have been safely lodged in best of the educational institutes across the country and abroad,” he said.

Singh said that the government was concerned about the academic career of the children and that with the co-operation of students and their parents, the examinations would be conducted smoothly.

The separatists have been issuing weekly protest programmes since the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani in an alleged police encounter in July in the Valley.

As many as 85 people, including two police men, have been killed and several thousand others injured in the ongoing unrest in the state. Around 5,000 security forces personnel have also been injured in the clashes.

Adding on to the people’s woes, many ceasefire violations have also been reported along the International Border. A total of 26 persons, including 14 security personnel, have been killed in the cross-border firing.

“We cannot wait for the last gun to fall silent, we have no time to waste at least for the children’s career and future,” Singh said, adding that it was a message to all those who tend to take the youth of the country for granted.

On the Opposition’s widespread criticism about the Centre’s demonetisation move, the BJP leader said that the parties were devoid of issues and would never succeed to sway the people.