Two students from Kashmir studying at Dehradun, Uttarakhand were questioned by the police for hours before being released, a police officer said on Friday, Hindustan Times reported.
The officer, as per the report, said that the decision to question the students at the city’s Premnagar police station was taken after input was received from the J&K police about their possible links to a militant suspect.
“Acting on the input from the J&K police, we called the two to the police station for questioning which went for several hours. However, they were later released after police didn’t find anything suspicious from them related to the input,” the officer said.
However, the report says that the Uttarakhand director general of police, Ashok Kumar, insisted that the decision to question the two students was part of an ongoing verification exercise.
“The students were asked to report to the police station as part of the routine verification process of students and people from other states staying in Uttarakhand,” the report quoted Kumar as saying.
The report also quoted Nasir Khuehami, national spokesperson of the J&K Students Association, as saying that they reached out to authorities back home after the two students were picked up by the police. It appears they did send an input that the two students used to “hang out with a person linked to militancy in Kashmir in their area.”
“Upon speaking to the police authorities in Kashmir it was found that they had come to know that the two, hailing from Kupwara district of Kashmir, were seen with some suspected elements in their area. They sent the input to Uttarakhand on the same asking them to find out more on it after which both were summoned by the police for questioning in the matter,” said Khuehami, as per the report.
He added, “Both were released on Friday after 16 hours.”