The Kolkata Police has asked all colleges in the city to provide details of their students from Jammu and Kashmir, which will be forwarded to the Union Home Ministry. The note was sent to the colleges in the last week of February, as students at Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University and Kolkata's Jadavpur University protested against the arrest of JNU Students' Union president Kanhaiya Kumar on sedition charges, and the subsequent crackdown on JNU.
The police note addressed to college principals says: "Please let me know that students, whose residential addresses is under the State of Jammu & Kashmir, studies in your Institution for onwards transmission to the Ministry of Home Affairs, North Block, New Delhi, Govt. of India."
While Pallav Kanti Ghosh, Kolkata's Joint Commissioner of Police (Intelligence), confirmed that the notes are "authentic", he declined to explain why they were sent, says The Indian Express.
However, sources in Kolkata Police said that they had been asked by Central intelligence agencies to collect this information. "It's an attempt to create dossiers on J&K students so that we can monitor their activities," said a senior police officer. "This is really something we are doing for the first time."
A Union Home Ministry spokesperson said: "Following the JNU controversy, the Centre had sensitised all states to take adequate precautionary measures to avoid a repeat of such incidents, and a general advisory was issued to all states."