Hindu hardliners storm Indian university after Kashmir flood appeal

NEW DELHI, Sept 16 (AFP): Hardline Hindu nationalists went on the rampage at a university in central India over an aid appeal for victims of devastating floods in Muslim-majority Kashmir, the vice chancellor said Tuesday.

The mob of young men stormed the Vikram University campus in Ujjain city on Monday, breaking windows, throwing furniture and trying to smash ceiling fans with wooden sticks, footage aired on national television showed.

Jawaharlal Kaul said the attack occurred after the university issued an appeal to help any Kashmiri students affected by the floods that have claimed several hundred lives and devastated the region's main city of Srinagar.

"There was an appeal issued by us for helping Kashmiri boys who are studying here...there was an appeal by the state government as well," the vice-chancellor told the NDTV network.

"They (the attackers) said they were from the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal," said Kaul, referring to right-wing militant outfits linked to India's ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

Hindu nationalist Prime Minister Narendra Modi stormed to power in May over his centre-left rivals, sparking fears among religious minorities of a rise of hardline Hindu grassroots groups in officially secular but Hindu-majority India.

Northern Jammu and Kashmir is India's only Muslim-majority state where many residents oppose Indian rule and want independence or a merger with the Himalayan region with neighbouring Pakistan.

Kaul said he had appealed through a local newspaper in Madhya Pradesh state for help to aid students whose families were thought caught in Kashmir's worst floods in a century.

"Particularly the landlords (of the students) were requested by me not to ask for rent for a couple of months until the situation is over," Kaul said.

The mob stormed Kaul's office, demanding an explanation for wanting to help Kashmiri students, before the violence broke out, he said.