Five students have been 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 following a complaint by Hiros Jyoti Das, a postgraduate economics student at IGNTU, Anuppur Sub-Divisional Officer of Police Naveen Tiwari told PTI.
The accused have been 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 (BNS).
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 occurred around 4 pm on January 13 as 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, following which they assaulted him,” Tiwari said. Das told police that he has 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.
The accused have been identified as Anurag Pande, Jatin Singh, Rajnish Tripathi, Vishal Yadav and Utkarsh Singh.
When asked whether racial slurs were used during the assault, the officer said the matter was under investigation. “The motive behind the assault will become clear after questioning the students. Das’s medico-legal certificate report is awaited,” Tiwari added.
The incident comes close on the heels of 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 hate crimes targeting students from the Northeast.
Attempts to contact Das and IGNTU Registrar Professor N.S. 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 some unruly students made racist remarks against Das and assaulted him when he protested.
Singhar further claimed that individuals linked to the ruling party consumed drugs on campus and attacked students, while alleging that the university administration had taken only token disciplinary action. He also accused the central university of becoming a hub for the BJP and RSS, with irregularities and repeated incidents surfacing.
The Congress and the RSS-affiliated Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), in separate statements, expressed concern over the campus atmosphere at IGNTU. The ABVP submitted a memorandum to the Anuppur Superintendent of Police, alleging that the university was becoming increasingly unsafe due to the presence of anti-social elements, drunkards and drug users.
“If the situation does not improve within two weeks, we will launch an agitation,” said Shivendra Chaturvedi, organising secretary of the Anuppur district ABVP.
In a related case, Anjel Chakma (24), a 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.
