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Did LU boys kidnap him for poll money?

LUCKNOW UNIVERSITY Proctor Dr AN Singh has sent a missive to the government recently seeking police help in getting hostel rooms searched regularly to ensure that no criminals or any such activity was going on there.

Published on: Sep 7, 2006, 24:13:00 IST
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LU proctor has shot off a missive to the State Government seeking police help to get the hostels freed from hooligans.

HT Image
HT Image

LUCKNOW UNIVERSITY Proctor Dr AN Singh has sent a missive to the government recently seeking police help in getting hostel rooms searched regularly to ensure that no criminals or any such activity was going on there.

Student union election is soon to be declared at the Lucknow University and its hostels and criminals in the garb of students collecting money by hook or crook have become the order of the day. The extent to which some LU students are involved in criminal activities came to the fore when Shehjehanpur police contacted their Lucknow counterpart intimating about a kidnapped boy being kept in a LU hostel on Tuesday.

“Dukan har waqt khuli rehti hai” (business is on round-the-clock), disclosed an LU hostel inmate who is not part of the 'trade' but witness to all such activities. Government employee Rajiv Gupta's son Himanshu (12) was abducted four days back from the Kotwali area of Shahjehanpur. The local police there had arrested one of the named accused Rahul who had blurted that the boy was kept with Sachin in the LU hostel room.

Despite receiving a serious bit of information like this, Lucknow police officials did not deem fit to initiate action strategically. Merely four policemen, including station house officer (SHO) of Hasanganj police station, accompanied by the proctor, reached the Chandrashekhar Azad Hostel.

The police team and the proctor remained standing outside the hostel room of the suspect inmate Sachin knocking at the door for over 20 minutes. By the time they decided to break into the room, Sachin had run away from the window.

None of the other hostel inmates revealed if they had seen any minor boy in the room during the past three days. This was not the first time the cops came to know about criminal activities in LU hostels. Several hardcore criminals have used the hostel rooms as safe haven while on the run.

Shooters in high-profile poetess Madhumita Shukla murder case too had reached one of the LU hostels after executing the murder on May 9, 2003. The main shooter in the case Santosh Rai had revealed during the interrogation by CBI sleuths how a number of wanted criminals from Eastern and Western UP districts stay in hostel rooms here.

An additional SP, who has served as SP (Trans-Gomti) here, revealed that gun-running racket, contract killing, extortion and drug peddling rackets are prevalent in LU hostels. The cops could hardly initiate stern action to remove criminals out of the hostels due to the political intervention, the ASP opined.

While Lucknow police always prefer being elusive when it comes to conduct extensive searches in the Lucknow University (LU) hostels, the varsity authority too develops cold feet when they come across the 'mighty' student leaders.

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