Internet Shutdown: Kashmiri Students Struggle to Check 10th Result

Hundreds of students visited the the J&K Board office at Bemina, Srinagar to get their result but were turned back

Image used for representational purpose.

(Photo: The Quint)

Results for Class 10 board examinations were announced on Thursday, 9 September, but thousands of students were making frantic efforts to know their result by calling their relatives and friends outside Kashmir, in the wake of the internet blockade in the Valley.

Hundreds of students visited the Jammu and Kashmir Board of School Education office at Bemina, Srinagar to get their result but were turned back by the officials.

“We were told to check the result from the board website. It sounded like a cruel joke as there is internet blockade in Kashmir,” Saniya Hamid, a candidate, said. 

She said she had to call her cousin in Delhi to get her result checked.

Tabeen Ahmad, another student, said he will have to wait till the official gazette is made available by the board to know his result. Journalist and analyst Arjimand Hussain took to Twitter to voice his concern about the lack of internet facilities.

“As the world navigates the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the age of Artificial Intelligence and all, 160,000 students of 10th standard in Internet-barred Kashmir this evening are calling people with Internet access outside Kashmir to just know their exam results.” 

Tabeen Ahmad

"Thousands of students, who can't call anyone outside Kashmir, are shuttling from pillar to post to access old-fashioned printed ‘gazettes’ to know their result. Will this Kashmiri millennial generation, aspiring high-quality education, forget this humiliation? Perhaps never," he added.