Day after student’s murder, fear stalks campus

Around 7 pm yesterday, Mano, along with his nephew Sudhash Ranjan Singh and one Anup Gupta, came to meet a student, Ranjit Verma, at the hostel. Around 7.45 pm, Mishra along with two persons stormed into Verma’s room and shot at Mano, who died on the spot, police said. The assailants later escaped in a car.

Late tonight, a raid was conducted on the hostel and police took away two students for questioning. Three extra companies of police have been deployed for round-the-clock patrolling.

But the one thing that no one is talking about is the prevalence of arms on the campus. At least 50 hostellers in Lucknow University are believed to possess licensed weapons, and there is no count of the unlicensed number. This revelation comes from the Sub-Inspector in-charge of the police post on LU campus, Vimlesh Kumar. Worse, there is little the police can do about it. ‘‘Even Mano kept a licensed rifle. His nephew in fact fired three shots at the attackers in retaliation,’’ Kumar said.

Police argue they cannot conduct checking inside the hostels till the Proctor gives permission and the hostel warden accompanies them. ‘‘But the university authorities never cooperate due to fear of the students. If we go on our own, students protest at police presence. Hence, there is no checking,’’ Kumar added.

All university authorities—including Vice-Chancellor Professor Shiv Bahadur Singh—remained unavailable for comment today.

For the past month, the campus has been witness to a series of criminal incidents. A couple of weeks ago, students had held a police officer hostage for over four hours and set a police jeep on fire demanding the release of a fellow student in police custody. On June 22, rival student groups had clashed outside LBS Hostel. Crude bombs were hurled, seriously injuring three students. Two days later, the groups had clashed again and police had registered two counter-FIRs. The V-C had suspended four students, and the same day a police raid had yielded three crude bombs from LBS Hostel. It later emerged that of the four arrested, only one was an LU student. The other three were outsiders.