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Journalism of Courage
Commissioner of Police Amitesh Kumar on Wednesday raised issues with private hostels and paying guest accommodations for college students having no time restrictions. During his speech unveiling the city police’s year-long plan for improving campus safety and discipline, Kumar also raised issues with boys being allowed to enter girls’ hostels and vice versa, saying that these accommodations had become ‘addas’ of ‘unwanted things’.
He said, “…the private hostels, it’s not a generalized statement, but many of them have become addas for a lot of unwanted things. There is absolutely no control over the children, the time when they are coming in, the time when they are going out, whether girls are being allowed in boys’ hostels, whether boys are being allowed in girls’ hostels, it requires serious rethinking.”
When questioned by The Indian Express about whether his remarks raising objections on residential choices of adult students veer into the realm of moral policing, Kumar responded, “It is not a question of moral policing, it is a question of trying to ensure that the student community and the youth are a disciplined lot. They have come here to the city with a certain objective. Certain aberrations could be acceptable from their point of view. Certain aberrations are strict violations of the rule of law. As long as it is not a violation of the rule of law, we are not inclined to be intervening in it. But the moment it crosses the boundary of violating the rule of law, I am sorry, we are going to implement it with a very firm hand.”
“As long as aberrations are not falling within the violations of law, it has been only an appeal to the educational institutes to try and see what they want to enforce, what they do not want to enforce. Our end solution has to be to minimize aberrations and ensure that there is voluntary compliance of rules and regulations,” he said.
