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Journalism of Courage
GANDHINAGAR, April 19: Over 100 terror-striken students of the Government Engineering College in Morbi vacated their hostel and descended on Gandhinagar on Monday afternoon and urged the chief minister and some of his senior ministerial colleagues to ensure their safety at the college and the hostel.
After making a plea to Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel and others at the Sachivalaya, the students, who are allegedly being terrorised by a gang of local goons, left for their native places in north Gujarat late in the evening. 8220;We would like to return to Morbi at the earliest, for the semister examinations are round the corner,8221; a North Gujarat Students8217; Federation leader said.
After hearing the woes of the students, Narmada Development Minister Jay Narayan Vyas spoke to Rajkot DSP Rural Sharma on the phone and asked him to provide protection to the engineering students in a non-partisan manner.
Vyas also called Rajkot Collector P.V. Trivedi and the DIG, Rajkot Range, and directed them to check the campus violence and ensure the safe return of the north Gujarat students to Morbi.
Shockingly, the campus violence has assumed casteist overtones. In a memorandum to Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, the aggrieved students alleged that a gang of anti-socials has formed a 8220;Patel Social Group8221; which terrorises students from other areas. Allegedly led by the nephew of a local BJP MLA, the outfit is also alleged to be indulging in illegal activities.
In the memorandum, the students said this gang of anti-socials had entered the college campus on Saturday and attacked students from north Gujarat with sharp weapons. Many students were injued. 8220;Instead of arresting the members of this gang, the local police booked some of us and kept us in police custody for the whole night,8221; they complained.
The students complained that the gang has forced the authorities to stop water supply to the hostel and was also not allowing tiffins for the hostelites. 8220;The police and local politicians are hand in glove with these goons. And, if this unholy nexus is not broken, these undesirable forces will continue to terrorise outsiders,8221; a student said.
According to sources in Morbi, it was around noon on April 17 that a fracas erupted between two rival groups of students at the college. They said that a minor altercation about accommodating students in the laboratories had led to the fight.
Soon the heated discussions gave way to assaults in which sticks and fights were used.
According to the District Superintendent of Police DSP Satish Sharma eight boys sustained minor injuries. Five of them were from north Gujarat. The police registered cases of rioting and followed it up with bandobast at the college premises. No arrests have been made in the matter.
The college authorities were not available for comment. But Sharma disclosed that two hostels have been shut down for a month.
Meanwhile classes were resumed at the college campus on Monday under bandobast.
