Seven students at an agricultural university in Kashmir were arrested and booked for abusing, harassing, and threatening non-Kashmiri students for supporting India during the ICC cricket World Cup final match earlier this month.

The Kashmiri students also celebrated India’s loss and raised pro-Pakistan slogans during India-Australia final match.

In a complaint to the police, a non-Kashmiri student named seven other students and said that after the match, they “started abusing me and targeting me for being a supporter of our country”. He also said that they threatened to shoot him. The students also raised pro-Pakistan slogans, “which created fear amongst the students from outside the UT of J&K,” the complaint said.

The complaint was filed by the victim student after a face-off between several students at the hostel of the Veterinary Sciences faculty of Sher-e-Kashmir University of Agricultural Sciences and Technology (SKUAST) at Shuhama in central Kashmir’s Ganderbal on the night of November 19.

“Basically, seven students had been arrested, but I don’t have the latest information about the case. The students didn’t write any complaint to us,” SKUAST’s Dean of Students Welfare, Dr Mohammad Abubakar Ahmad Siddiqui told The Indian Express.

An official at the Faculty of Veterinary Sciences said that on the night of November 19, there was a face-off between students at the undergraduate hostel after India lost the match. “There are around 300 students residing at the hostels, out of which 30-40 are from states like Punjab, Rajasthan and others,” he said. “On the night of November 19, there was some face-off. The students from outside Kashmir alleged that the local students celebrated (after India’s loss) and harassed them,” he said.

Based on the complaint, the J&K police booked the arrested students under UAPA, and IPC sections 505 (intent to incite a class or community to commit offence against any other class or community) and 506 (criminal intimidation).