The Centre on Friday issued an advisory to all states and Union Territories directing them to take steps to ensure the safety and security of people from Jammu and Kashmir. There have been several reports of Kashmiri students being attacked in parts of the country, following an attack in Pulwama on February 14, which killed 40 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force.

On Friday, the Supreme Court had sent notices to the Centre and 10 states asking for their responses on a petition seeking intervention to prevent alleged attacks on Kashmiri students following the Pulwama suicide bombing. The top court had directed the governments to take action against the accused and submit a report on the matter.

In the advisory, the Ministry of Home Affairs expressed concern about reports of harassment and attacks against Kashmiris and it cited the Supreme Court’s direction about their safety. Local authorities have been advised to take all measures to “prevent any act of assault, threat, intimidation and social boycott, etc” against Kashmiris and minorities.

Several Kashmiri students were reportedly harassed and beaten up in Dehradun following the terror attack in South Kashmir in which 40 security personnel were killed. Since then, many Kashmiri students in Uttarakhand have temporarily left the state. Nearly 300 Kashmiri students have fled to Jammu and Delhi from colleges in Uttarakhand after large-scale eviction from their campuses.

The central government, however, had said there was no such harassment of Kashmiri students. “We are in touch with all institutes, no such incident took place,” Union Human Resource Development Minister Prakash Javadekar had said.