Official sources told that amid  clashes between police and stone pelting youth in Baramulla town, where a shutdown was observed against the arrest of some traders and youth on charges of stone pelting,  some  youth stopped  a bus full of students   and offered them juice and snacks. “The youth also informed the students about the protests and told them that  Kashmiris were not terrorists as claimed by the Indian state,” the sources said.

“The youth told the non-local students that Kashmiris harbored no grudge against the Indian people but were protesting for their birth right and the present strike is demanding the release of youth who had been arrested by police on stone pelting charges,” the sources said.

Sources said that the  students and the stone pelting youth also exchanged contact numbers with each other, and the youth requested them to convey the “message to Indians that Kashmiris are struggling for their  freedom.”

“Later the students thanked the stone pelting youth for their hospitality,” the sources said.

The students who hailed from West Bengal, Chhattisgarh, Assam, and other Indian states were on their way to participate in a sports event under the National Integration Programme with Scouting and Mountaineering Department, to the border town of Uri when they were stopped by the youth.

Talking to media a protesting youth who was part of the group that stopped the bus said on condition of anonymity: “When we were busy with forces, we spotted a white colour video coach bus full with passengers on way to Uri and stopped them.”

Deputy Commissioner Baramulla Ghulam Ahmad Khawaja said that at least five buses were going to Uri for a sports event. “All the drivers were told to report first at  Degree College Baramulla, from where we planned to  escort them to the venue of the sports event. However,  only four buses reported the college ground and later the driver of the fifth bus narrated the incident to us,” Khwaja said.

He said that district administration was very thankful to the “locals who treated the students as guests.”