The country is in mourning and TV channels are still beaming live pictures of wreath laying ceremony for the 18 martyred soldiers who were killed after four heavily armed terrorists attacked an administrative base near 12 battalion headquarters in Uri close to the Line of Control (LoC) early morning on Sunday. Within hours of the attack, a student of Aligarh Muslim University had to pay the price for his objectionable comments on Facebook.
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Modasir Yousuf, a student of MSc in Organic Chemistry hailing from Kashmir was expelled for posting objectionable comments on the Uri terror attack which was taken very seriously by the Vice Chancellor, Lt Gen Zameer Uddin Shah. As per reports, Yousuf offered his apologies later, but university authorities went ahead with his expulsion due to the sensitivity of the issue.
The unrest in Kashmir after Burhan Wani¡¯s death still refuses to subside after two months where crackdowns and arrests have become the norm. The current situation has led to their robust tourism industry suffering a huge blow to the state¡¯s economy. While the entire nation sympathises with the average Kashmiri who wants to lead a normal life like any other citizen of India, such kind of comments are unpardonable.
AMU has done well to take a quick decision. By clamping down on the issue, the university has nipped in the bud another potential debate on freedom of expression before the issue could gather steam. This was a well-planned attack by terrorists who sneaked inside a defence installation and killed mostly unarmed soldiers who were sleeping.
The fact that two grenade launchers and 36 grenades were recovered from the four dead terrorists indicates that non-state actors from across the border were involved. Demeaning the sacrifice of our soldiers can have dangerous consequences and AMU authorities rightly took swift action to pre-empt the incident from being politicised, which runs the risk of being painted in communal colours.