KU festival: Students return awards in protest

-Zahid Maqbool, Kashmir Dispatch

The valedictory function of Sonzal- a seven-day intra-university youth festival turned out to be a damp squib on Saturday when at least half a dozen students, most of them from Islamia College of Science and Commerce, returned their awards alleging judges of nepotism.

Agitated awardees ‘cried foul’ and alleged judges of selecting students of their own college for top prizes.

“We returned our award trophies for we believe judges were biased. We seriously believe judges chose their own students for top prizes and ignored deserving candidates,” an angry group of students from Islamic College of Science and Commerce told Kashmir Dispatch.

The agitated student alleged judges from Institute of Music and Fine Arts (IMFA) of choosing their own trainees over deserving students.

“All the judged were from IMFA and most of the top awards went to the students of same institute. So much so, none of our paintings, collage or cartoons weren’t displayed and shown to audience. It made us angry and we returned our prizes in protest,” the students alleged.

Besides ‘rigging the results’, the students said that even topics were changed to suit blue eyed participants. “First we were given a topic Festival and Fashion, and, all of sudden, we were asked to make cartoons on a different topic: Indian Festival and Sonzal University,” explaining reason for their protest said.

The prize distribution ceremony, which was attended by Minister for Tourism Nwang Ringzin Jora and Vice- Chancellor University of Kashmir Prof. Dr. Talat Ahmad, sources said, witnessed some ugly scenes when organizers and aggrieved students entered into a verbal brawl.

So much so, one of the disconcerted students, banged his trophy in presence of Jora and the Vice-Chancellor.

All this prompted audience- majority of them sitting in the upper tier of University Auditorium- to ‘jeer and hoot’ at organizers and raised slogans demanding justice to the agitated lot. The jam packed auditorium was reverberated with slogans- cheating, we want justice- as organizers were left embarrassed.

The students weren’t the only ones to cry foul. Even some of student who did their bit to organize the event felt their contribution was ignored.

“We did all the ground work and put in lot of hard work to make this event a success. For some reasons, we weren’t awarded trophies of appreciation which most of high level officials were given,” said a student-organizer, Gowhar Bhat, who was leaving no stone unturned to make the event vibrant and successful.

When this correspondent called the cultural officer and main organizer of the event, Shahid Khan, he received the call on first instance and after listening the question promised to get back. But, after making repeated calls, he did not answer.

Few days back when students reportedly resorted to booing and chanting Azadi slogans when National Anthem was being played in presence of the Governor NN Vohra, who was the Chief Guest on the first day of the festival.