Guwahati, Jan 16: Five students were expelled and booked for allegedly assaulting a 22-year-old postgraduate student from Assam at a hostel of Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU) in Amarkantak, located in Madhya Pradesh’s Anuppur district, police said on January 16.
An FIR was registered shortly before midnight on Wednesday based on a complaint filed by Hiros Jyoti Das, a postgraduate economics student at IGNTU, Anuppur Sub-Divisional Officer of Police Naveen Tiwari told PTI. The accused were booked under Sections 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 296 (obscene acts and words), 351(3) (criminal intimidation) and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
Police said the university informed them that the five students had already been expelled by the disciplinary committee a day earlier. According to Das’s complaint, the incident took place around 4 pm on January 13 when he was returning to his hostel room from the washroom.
“The accused allegedly asked him where he was from and what he was doing at the university, and then assaulted him,” Tiwari said. Das told police that he had been studying at the university for the past three years and sustained injuries to his eyes, lips, nose and temples after being struck with a bracelet. He named Anurag Pande, Jatin Singh, Rajnish Tripathi, Vishal Yadav and Utkarsh Singh as the accused.
When asked whether racial slurs were used during the assault, the officer said the matter was under investigation. He added that the motive behind the attack would become clearer after questioning the accused and that Das’s medico-legal certificate report was awaited.
The incident occurred close to the death of Anjel Chakma, a student from Tripura, in Dehradun last month, which had sparked nationwide outrage and renewed demands for stricter action against attacks on students from the Northeast. Attempts to contact Das and IGNTU Registrar Professor NS Hari Narayana Moorthy were unsuccessful.
Meanwhile, the Madhya Pradesh Congress criticised the ruling BJP over the incident. Leader of the Opposition in the state Assembly, Umang Singhar, alleged that unruly students made racist remarks against Das and assaulted him when he objected. He further claimed that students linked to the ruling party consumed drugs on campus and that the university administration took only token action.
The Congress and the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, in separate statements, expressed concern over the campus atmosphere. The ABVP submitted a memorandum to the Anuppur Superintendent of Police, alleging that the university was becoming unsafe due to the presence of anti-social elements, drunkards and drug users. Anuppur district ABVP organising secretary Shivendra Chaturvedi warned that an agitation would be launched if the situation did not improve within two weeks.
In a related case, Anjel Chakma, a 24-year-old final-year MBA student from Tripura, was allegedly attacked with a knife at a private university in Dehradun on December 9 and died on December 26 after undergoing treatment for 17 days.
