A group of Kashmiri students in India’s Uttar Pradesh state have been booked for sedition after they cheered for Pakistan during a cricket match against India.
According to the NDTV report, the students are now facing arrest.
Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah called it ‘unacceptably harsh punishment’. He said the punishment would ruin the students' future and alienate them more.
Some 67 students of the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University, a private college in Meerut, were suspended on Tuesday for celebrating Pakistan's victory in the Asia Cup match against India on Sunday, the report said.
Omar Abdullah in his tweet said: "I believe what the students did was wrong and misguided but they certainly did not deserve to have charges of sedition slapped against them.”
The authorities of the college have claimed that the students celebrated loudly in the dorm and chanted pro-Pakistan slogans that triggered a fight with other students.
Meanwhile, the students were suspended and sent home after the incident. They claimed that the college had first told them that they were suspended for three days but has not allowed them to return.
One of the students said: "The college never heard our side of the story. They just decided on their own. Some of us were also crying as we had no money.”
The story has provoked anger on social media. The university said it was necessary to remove the students immediately "as a precaution" because the situation was unstable.
They also called the police in fear of the violence that would spread to other parts of Meerut town regarding the incident.
Around 200 Kashmiri students are enrolled in engineering and law courses in the university.