The right to celebrate?

When India was defeated by Pakistan by 10 wickets for the first time, three students of Raja Balwant Singh Engineering College were handed a suspension letter. The students locally belong to the state of Jammu and Kashmir, their names are Arsheed Yousef, Inayat Altaf Sheikh, and Showkat Ahmed Ganai.

The students committed an offence by putting up Whatsapp status in which they praised Pakistani players after their victory over India in a T-20 World Cup, the college hostel justified the suspension by putting it in the category of “indiscipline act”.

With this, the dean of the hostel Dr. Dushyant Singh stated, “Therefore the hostel discipline committee has decided to suspend all three of them with immediate effect”

Complaints regarding the same were also registered by the local leaders of the youth wing of BJP at the Jagdishpura police station.

The Agra City SP Mr. Vikas Kumar has received the complaint and will take action on that basis.

The college administration suspended the students on Monday, "The students were studying under the Prime Minister Super Special Scheme. We have also appraised the PM office and AICTE of the students' act. However, students have apologised," said Dr. Pankaj Gupta, director of administration and finance at the institute.

Writer’s thoughts:

 With the facts that were stated by the college department, the Police, and the Students themselves, we can understand the facts from 3 perspectives.

 1^st perspective (the college):

According to the college department, it was mandatory to punish the students in form of suspension as Pakistan is considered as a nation that supports and promotes terrorism, secondly, Cricket is an overhyped game in India thus celebrating the victory of a country like Pakistan would have enraged many other fellow students thus it was not a safe environment for the teaching staff as well, thirdly when the Police registered a case against these three students it means that their action falls under some criminal offence and to maintain the reputation of the college, the suspension under the indiscipline act was a right thing to do. 

 2^nd perspective (the police):

According to the Anti-terror law of 2019 Police has the right to detain anyone on the grounds of a suspect against the person if he/she is like to any terrorist organisation in any possible way.

Police understand that this is rather a case of different ideology but as the complaint is filed Police must investigate the matter, thus it shall strictly be kept that way until further investigation.

 3^rd perspective (the students):

Considering some of the questions that might occur in the minds of students a few of them are highlighted below:

With the many doubt-filled within us is it not the right of each and every citizen to celebrate and support the victory of any team they like, secondly we have not criticised our Indian team but have just appreciated the Pakistani cricket team peacefully through Whatsapp story how does that become a crime, Thirdly we are students and our parents have sent us to study way from Jammu and Kashmir just like anyone else we do support a quality cricket and a good a sportsmanship spirit so how it was not wrong when Virat Kohli congratulated the Paki team and how is it wrong if we did the same?

 Conclusion:

It is true that in India the game of cricket is played and promoted at an extreme level and when it is against Pakistan the situation becomes just like a war, the pressure on the players can be easily judged by the viewers thus in a situation when India loses the game it provokes the enthusiasm of the supporters in form of rage and in those situations the audience often forgets that it is just a game, similarly when these three students from Jammu and Kashmir posted Whatsapp story just to appreciate the game of Pakistani players it does not looks like a severe offence, in fact when it is confirmed by the dean that the students apologised for the act, the resignation was unnecessary, but as the matter is in hands of police a proper investigation shall be done, whether the stories posted by students were a key to trigger or spread communal violence or just a simple appreciation.

To understand this situation in another way India appreciates the sportsmanship spirit in all the games other than cricket mainly because of a much smaller public influence.

So according to me if the students come clean after the police investigation the College must readmit these students in the campus and treat them equally, as for every Indian, the feeling of Nation is at the top thus to fight with each other on stuff like this can never be justified.

Remember that my words only conclude with the limited points highlighted in this particular case before the police investigation.

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