Anger in Valley over J&K student's harassment in Pak

Shock and anger gripped the state after a Kashmiri PhD scholar was allegedly harassed and humiliated by his guide in a Pakistani university.

Ishrat Naveed, of Soibugh in central Kashmir’s Budgam district, who is pursuing PhD at Qaud-i-Azam University in Islamabad has accused his guide and supervisor Dr Tariq Mehmood, assistant professor, department of plant sciences, of emotionally blackmailing and harassing him.

The harassment of the Indian student comes as a strong juxtaposition to Pakistani scholar Nadia Mehrdin’s praising the hospitality she enjoyed in Kashmir during the last four years.  Nadia successfully completed her PhD from Kashmir University recently.

Like Nadia, Ishrat too was selected for PhD programme in Bio-Technology under a SAARC exchange programme in 2010. However, he has been at the receiving end in Pakistan with several allegations leveled against him including that of spying.

Ishrat has also accused his guide of misusing his experimental design and optimized protocols.
He said that his samples including transgenic plants, expression vectors and clones worth millions were stolen.

“Ishrat has told us that his guide and supervisor had taken all the research samples. How can Ishrat be an Indian spy? We are shocked by the baseless allegations leveled by the guide,” said a family member.

Shocked by the treatment meted out to Ishrat, the Jammu and Kashmir government is knocking the doors of the external affairs ministry seeking their help in stopping the harassment. “This is an unfortunate incident. They (Pakistani authorities) cannot level wild allegation against the Kashmiri boy. I even requested chief minister that he should take up the matter with the external affairs minister so the harassment against the boy who seems to be innocent is put to an end,” Taj Mohidin, J&K minister for medical education, told dna.

The opposition party, PDP, said the interests of Ishrat should be safeguarded. “The good things had happened adding value to peace process. But it is unfortunate incident. We call upon centre to take care of its citizen,” said Naem Akthar, chief spokesman of PDP.