NIT row: A 'non-issue' being tried to be converted into communal incident,says Mehbooba

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister on Friday said in her first meeting with her BJP ministerial colleagues, she stressed on the need to underplay some unfortunate and uncalled for incidents like NIT, because ultimately they have to run a coalition government in the state.

In an hour-long informal chat with ETV at her official residence here, she said, "A 'non-issue' is being tried to be converted into a communal incident by some elements."

She told ETV that she had expressed the same view to Union Human Resource and Development (HRD) Minister Smriti Irani, when the latter had phoned up her. She said she told Irani that in fact a handful of non-resident students at NIT are otherwise keen to migrate.

She also appreciated S.A.S. Gilani for appealing to NIT's Kashmiri students to take care of the safety of non-Kashmiri students as they are "the guests of Kashmir", and expressed her hope that all would be fine soon.

Tension simmered at the NIT campus last week after India lost the World T20 semi-final to the West Indies.

Some engineering students from outside the state claimed Kashmiri students had chanted anti-India slogans and burst firecrackers after India's defeat.