Mehbooba rules out shifting NIT from Srinagar

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, who is here on her maiden visit after taking over the reins of the state, today dismissed the possibility of shifting National Institute of Technology (NIT) out of the Valley.

The 56-year-old Mehbooba, who assumed charge of the PDP-BJP government on April 4, called on Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh here, a meeting she described as a "courtesy call".

Emerging from the 45-minute meeting with Singh, Mehbooba said, "It is a courtesy call on the Home Minister after I took over as the Chief Minister".

During the meeting, the two sides are believed to have discussed the present turmoil in the state due to clashes between outstation students and police besides law and order situation arising out of militancy.

Sources in the ministry said the Home Minister told Mehbooba that normalcy should be restored at the earliest.

As she was leaving the North Block, journalists asked her questions about the unrest at the NIT and the demand by outstation students to shift the campus to Jammu.

"Let me make it clear that it is an issue within the institute and please do not give it a colour of local versus outsiders. The Human Resources Development Ministry is looking into the grievances of the outstation students and I am hopeful that it will be resolved soon.

"As far as demands of some students to shift the NIT campus out of Srinagar is considered, let me make it clear that it won't be possible," she said.

To a question that many outstation students had not appeared in the examination that began yesterday, she said "Some students were not prepared for exams. Their exams would be conducted later.

"Some students have gone back to their homes because of the environment," Mehbooba, the first woman Chief Minister of the state, said.

She later met Surface Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari and is believed to have discussed the issue of widening of state's national highways which has been pending with his ministry for a long time.

She is also believed to have taken up the issue of bad road connectivity within the state.