A major fight allegedly broke out between the leaders of DTU protesters and the students of Meena community on Tuesday night
Just when the mounting tension over the conversion of Delhi College of Engineering (DCE) into a technological university was settling down, a major fight allegedly broke out between the leaders of DTU protesters and the
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| Scarred future: The assailants had gathered outside the university and were armed with bats, chains and knives. Pic/Mid day |
students of Meena community on Tuesday night. Though the reason behind the clash is yet to be ascertained, DTU leaders allege that it's the vice-chancellor who had masterminded the brawl.
According to the DTU students, the leaders of the protest were badly beaten up by the Meena community students and some goons, allegedly sent by college authorities.
"The attackers came across as professional goons whom we had never seen on campus. They got support from a few Meena students from our university, who brutally battered the students. We took nine friends of ours to the nearby hospital. Among them students Pankaj Mishra, Ankit Babbar and Nitin Verma, are stated to be critical," said a final year student Nitin Bhairaya.
Around 11.30 pm on Tuesday, three-final year students - Mirza Faraz Alam, Nimish Agarwal and Ankit Mittal - were first allegedly attacked in their car (black Hyundai i10) outside the university when they were on their way back from a nearby roadside eatery.
In spite of entering the university gate to escape the assailants, the windowpane of the car in which the students were travelling was smashed by the goons.
"The assailants smashed the windows with bats. These people chased us till the campus and none of the guards at the gate came to our rescue. The PCR van which is always around, strangely, was nowhere to be seen," said Agarwal.
The situation got worse when the students called out to their friends for rescue.
"By the time we came out with a group of our friends, many others had joined the assailants too. They were armed with bats, chains and blades," alleged an injured student, wishing anonymity.
"We are being targeted by the vice-chancellor of the university as we were holding protests for the past one month. It is the chain of events that make us feel that the whole act was deliberate. The university is secured 24x7 by the private guards on campus and a PCR van is deployed outside the gate, but why on Tuesday when the incident occurred, no one came to our rescue? Why the CCTV camera, which is installed at the gate, suddenly stopped working on the same day? Even the mobile phone of the VC was switched off and till now he has not communicated with us. The authorities have failed in their effort to break our unity and so they are resorting to such activities. We have registered a case against Pankaj Meena, Mithlesh Dindor, Priyanshu Meena and Shailesh Meena," added Bhairaya.
But the university officials beg to differ.
The officials claim that it's a move by the students' union to disturb the normalcy in the college. "After trying their best to disrupt the classes and continue with their agitation, the protesting student leaders unsuccessfully attempted tou00a0 involve students in their agitation and restored to violence. On Sunday, they pulled out two students Vivek and Shobhraj Meena out of their hostels, took them outside the university campus and thrashed them badly. Both the students have lodged a complaint with the university authorities as well as with the local police," said an official, wishing anonymity.
The university has ordered an independent inquiry by an additional district magistrate to investigate the act of violence, which took place outside the campus on Tuesday night.
