North-South divide, flare-ups put colleges on police radar

CHENNAI: Clashes between students of different states studying in educational institutions has become a cause of concern for district law enforcement agencies. Police have asked colleges to provide details of all students from other states on their campuses but most managements have not done this, police said.
Tiruvallur police on Saturday arrested 11 marine engineering students for attacking their juniors.“The clash was between students from Kerala and Punjab,” said Tiruvallur superintendent of police V Vanitha. She said the police have asked 28 private education institutions in the district to submit details of students from other states.
Police accuse the colleges of not taking action against the students from other states who are involved in crimes on campus and outside. “Private institutions have not come forward to sort out the issue. Only a few colleges have provided the details we asked for,” said Kancheepuram superintendent of police S Manoharan. The institutions agreed to submit the details during a meeting with district police officials on November 1.
Most clashes were reported between north and south Indian students, police said. An engineering student from Assam was brutally murdered by another student from Assam in Padur early on October 26.
The incident followed the murder of a second year mechanical engineering student Dhruba Jyoti Dutta from Assam studying in Annamalai University in Chidambaram. In September, there was an outbreak of violence on the Bharat University campus by students who said the institution had not fulfilled its promises for campus placement.
In 2010, students from Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal got into a fight with their hostel mates from Tamil Nadu at Hindustan (Deemed) University in Padur. The university was closed for nearly a month.
Police said colleges were not able to monitor students who lived off campus. “Rules are strict in hostels. But most students from other states stay outside the campus. It’s hard to monitor them,” said the administrator of private institution.
“There is a fixed quota for outstation students in affiliated colleges. No agency controls private universities in the state which are admitting students from other states,” said IIT-Kanpur chairman M Anandakrishnan.