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Three more arrested over attack on foreign students at Guj varsity
The institution, for its part, said it had taken a raft of measures to better secure the hostel and safeguard students
Three more people have been arrested in connection with the attack on international students offering namaz at the Gujarat University hostel in Ahmedabad, senior police officers involved in the investigation said on Monday, two days after the violence that triggered outrage on social media and prompted the ministry of external affairs to step in.
The institution, for its part, said it had taken a raft of measures to better secure the hostel and safeguard students.
Gujarat Police have now arrested five people – they picked up two people on Sunday – after Saturday evening’s attack, when a group of 20-25 people stormed the university hostel and attacked people who were praying on a platform. Five students were injured in the violence and two of them – one from Sri Lanka and the other from Tajikistan – were hospitalised.
“Three of the suspects were presented before a court and remanded for three days. Two more will appear before a court on Tuesday for their remand. Our current focus is on arresting all the culprits,” stated Ahmedabad deputy commissioner of police (zone 7) Tarun Duggal.
Gujarat University vice-chancellor Neerja Gupta detailed a list of steps she said were being taken for the security of students and to give them more facilities.
The measures include shifting over 150 international students residing on campus to a separate hostel for Non-Resident Indians (NRIs) within three days; hiring former army personnel to enhance hostel security (for which a private agency has been roped in)and replacing the university’s study-abroad programme coordinator and the warden of the NRI hostel.
“We recognise that these are foreign students, and when travelling abroad, cultural sensitivity is very important. We will engage with them to provide cultural guidance and discuss strategies to enhance their security. Additionally, we will sensitise students to local customs and cultures to mitigate any potential conflicts,” said Gupta.
She also said foreign student advisory committee would be convened to “regularly engage with foreign students, document their grievances, and work towards finding solutions to address them.”
Meanwhile, the Gujarat high court declined to intervene as a probe agency, emphasising that not every incident warrants a public interest litigation (PIL).
A division bench led by chief justice Sunita Agarwal and justice Aniruddha Mayee rejected a request from advocate KR Koshti to take suo motu cognisance of the incident. Chief justice Agarwal declined the request, stating that “the police will look into it, that is not a matter of PIL. Every matter is not a matter of PIL. Let the police take note of this..”
“Don’t substitute this court with police inspectors. Don’t make us the inspector of police. We are not investigating officers,” she said.
The attack took place in Block A of the Gujarat University hostel, which houses around 75 of Gujarat University’s 300 international students. The group that broke into the hostel asked students who were praying “why they were praying there” and “told them to go to a mosque”.According to the police, this “led to a verbal altercation” that then “escalated into stone-pelting and physical violence”.
Some people in the group then barged into the rooms and began vandalising property, senior police officers had said on Sunday.
External affairs ministry spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal had in a post on X said the Gujarat government is taking strict action against the perpetrators.
