Kashmiri students suspended in India for 'supporting Pakistan' in cricket
A university in northern India has temporarily suspended more than 60 students from Indian-administered Kashmir for allegedly supporting Pakistan in a cricket match, reports say.
Pakistan forced India's exit from the ongoing Asia Cup in a nail-biting finish on Sunday. Emotions run high both on and off the field whenever the neighbouring countries play a cricket match.
A group of students at the Swami Vivekanand Subharti University in Uttar Pradesh state allegedly "celebrated Pakistan's win", leading to arguments with other college mates, reports say.
The university administration then ordered an inquiry and decided to suspend the students from Kashmir, reports The Times of India.
They were then taken to Delhi escorted by police to avoid further confrontation, local media reports said.
University vice-chancellor Manzoor Ahmed said the suspension was a "precautionary measure".
"There was strong resentment against the students who had shouted anti-national and pro-Pakistan slogans after Pakistan won the match. So as a precautionary measure, we temporarily suspended students of Jammu and Kashmir for three days.
"We arranged two buses to take the boys to Ghaziabad (suburb of Delhi). We also sent three senior university officials with them," The Indian Express quotes Mr Ahmed as saying.
Some of the Kashmiri students deny any wrongdoing in their statements to the media.
"When we clapped at the victory of Pakistan, it infuriated the local students. They went on a rampage, damaged the hall, hurled abuses at us, and threatened to beat us," Irfan Ahmad, an engineering student at the university, told the Kashmir Reader.
A groups of parents from the Kashmir Valley have also reacted over the incident.
"There was a heated argument between some students but most students are innocent, so we think college did a good thing by sending them... in order to avoid any clashes," the Hindustan Times quotes one of the parents as saying.
Claimed by both countries in its entirety, Kashmir has been a flashpoint for more than 60 years.
Meanwhile, the health ministry has banned the "two-finger test" (also known as virginity test) performed on rape victims, calling it "unscientific", as part of the new guidelines drawn for treating such cases, The Hindu reports.
The guidelines were drafted by experts and Indrajit Khandekar, a member of India's Clinical Forensic Medicine Unit, referred to the current treatment of rape victims as "pitiable and horrendous".
"It has been observed that rape victims are usually put under a horribly judgmental microscope from the moment they call the cops. They are often subjected to judgmental attitudes by doctors and other medical staff in the hospital," the report quotes Mr Khandekar as saying.
Meanwhile, the Indian embassy in Kiev has asked all Indian nationals in Ukraine "to register on its website with all necessary details so that they could be contacted quickly in case of any eventuality", The Deccan Herald reports.
India has about 4,000 students studying in Ukraine which is going through a political turmoil after President Viktor Yanukovych was deposed by an interim government on 22 February.
Meanwhile, India's University Grants Commission (UGC) has banned dissection of any "live animal" in universities for science studies, The Hindu reports.
"You are requested to come up with alternate modes of dissections using digital dissected specimen," the UGC said in a letter to the universities.
And finally, a 19th Century sword, which is one of the "most significant heirlooms" belonging to the last Sikh emperor Maharaja Ranjit Singh, will be sold at an auction in the UK later this month", The Tribune reports.
Mullock's Auctioneers, who are organising the sale, says the sword was in the possession of an English family of military descent and was "originally thought to be an Islamic sword belonging to a Moghul Prince", the report says.