Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Mohan Yadav on January 16 said that those responsible for the assault on an Assamese student at Indira Gandhi National Tribal University (IGNTU) will not be spared, after police invoked a non-bailable provision in the case.
The incident took place around 4 pm on Tuesday at an IGNTU hostel in Amarkantak, where Hiros Jyoti Das, a 22-year-old postgraduate student from Assam, was allegedly assaulted by five fellow students. An FIR was registered shortly before midnight on Wednesday based on Das’s complaint.
In a post on X, Yadav said the police had registered a case and were taking appropriate legal action. He added that the university administration had also initiated disciplinary proceedings against the accused students. “No one will be spared,” the Chief Minister said.
According to Anuppur Superintendent of Police Moti-ur-Rehman, the victim’s Medical Legal Certificate revealed injuries to his nose and the area below his eyes. Based on the medical findings, police added Section 114 (causing grievous injury) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) to the case. The section is non-bailable and carries a maximum punishment of seven years’ imprisonment.
Initially, 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 BNS. With the inclusion of Section 114, the case has now become non-bailable, the SP said.
Police said that preliminary investigations indicate the accused questioned the victim about his place of origin before assaulting him, though no racial remarks were reportedly made. In his complaint, Das stated that he was returning to his hostel room from the washroom when the accused asked him where he was from and why he was studying at the university, before allegedly attacking him.
Das named Anurag Pande, Jatin Singh, Rajnish Tripathi, Vishal Yadav, and Utkarsh Singh as the accused. Earlier, Amarkantak police station house officer Lal Bahadur Tiwari said the five students had either fled or returned to their homes in Uttar Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
Attempts to contact the victim and IGNTU Registrar Professor N S Hari Narayana Moorthy were unsuccessful.
The incident comes close on the heels of the death of Anjel Chakma, a 24-year-old MBA student from Tripura, who was allegedly stabbed at a private university in Dehradun, Uttarakhand, on December 9. Chakma died on December 26 after 17 days of treatment, sparking nationwide outrage over student safety on university campuses.
