Chitrakoot simmers, Nanaji to go on fast

The events date back to October 7, when two B.Tech students — Sandeep Lalawat and Awadesh Pratap Singh — were kidnapped by dacoits. Lalawat escaped during a police encounter on October 15 but on October 24, with the police failing to free Awadesh, the students staged a 26-hour chakka jam of the Satna-Chitrakoot road connecting Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.

That’s when the police stepped in. T. Karunakaran, the Vice-Chancellor, said the police staged a lathi-charge following which the students started running towards the main buildings. Police, he alleges, entered the campus without permission, ‘‘They were firing in the air besides bursting tear gas shells. Some vehicles were also set on fire.’’

He alleges that he was also hit when he tried to intervene, and the police then went into his office and beat up those inside, including Awadesh’s parents. ‘‘The police were seen breaking the doors to the girls’ hostel; two women police officers and many of their male colleagues entered the premises, broke the room doors, pulled out girls and assaulted them, abusing them all the while.’’

However, Superintendent of Police Raja Babu Singh denied these charges. The police action, he said, was taken after the sub-divisional magistrate declared the chakka jam illegal. ‘‘There was no firing, we lobbed tear gas sheels and fired rubber bullets. The students burnt buses and trucks. We have evidence that the V-C himself was sitting in the chakka jam and that his office was being used to throw stones.’’

In another development, the father of one of the abducted boys has alleged that police were hand-in-glove with the dacoits and that the SP had asked him to pay up the ransom. Singh, denying the charge, stated that the police only acted according to the requirement of the situation.