Digvijaya seeks PM intervention for Kashmiri scholar

Congress leader Digvijaya Singh today sought Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje's intervention for the protection and rehabilitation of a Kashmiri student who left the premier BITS Pilani institute after being threatened and abused.
"Kashmiri scholar leaves BITS Pilani after facing abuses. Sad. Would CM Rajasthan or PM intervene so that Hashim Sofi can be given protection so that he can continue his studies?" he said on Twitter.
"Or he may be admitted in any government college in J&K in the course which he was studying in BITS," Singh said.
Singh hit out at the BJP asking why it did not control its cadres and said the saffron party would not do so as its "foot soldiers" help polarise the public on religious lines for electoral gains.

"Also why BJP is not controlling its cadres? They won't as they are the foot soldiers of BJP indoctrinated by RSS who polarize on religious grounds to give them electoral advantage," he said.
Hashim Sofi, a 27-year-old Kashmiri researcher at BITS Pilani in Rajasthan, left for home after alleging that he was threatened by some unidentified persons, barely three weeks after joining the institute.

Sofi, who hails from Bandipora district in Kashmir, had told the hostel's chief warden that on Friday morning he had found the door of his room and his clothes inked with threats and abuses, an official of the institute said.

Following the incident, the BITS Pilani administration has ordered a probe.
Sofi had joined as a Junior Research Fellow in pharmacy, science and engineering research board (SERB).
At the AICC briefing, party spokesman Manish Tewari said, "Be it the incident of BITS Pilani or putting up hoardings in UP, the government is supporting all anti-social elements and has given them a free hand".