This was not quite ‘Thank God it’s Friday’. A group of 70 St. Stephen’s students was involved in a drunken brawl at the Odyssey resto-bar in Gurgaon on Friday, followed by a scuffle at the parking lot which eventually landed them at the DLF police station. They were let off after a senior professor tendered a written apology.
The Stephenians reached Odyssey around 9:30 pm. Some of them, eyewitnesses claim, were already drunk. An hour later, they got into a heated argument with the bar’s security staff when they were asked to leave as bars in Gurgaon shut down at midnight; they smashed liquor bottles on the floor. One of the students, Aditya Menon, said: “The staff told us to leave as a bottle thrown by someone had hit and injured a guest.”
Finally, the group had to be pushed out. At the parking area, they refused to pay the parking fees, and a fight ensued between the students, and the parking attendants and security staff.
A passing police van stopped to inquire. A few students allegedly even got involved in a fight with the police, and were taken to the police station. A written apology was tendered by Professor Aditya Pratap from St. Stephen’s history department, who said that he went to the police station in “personal capacity”. The apology stated: “We had a quarrel with the security guards… We apologise for the same and promise not to do it again.”
Although Hanif Qureshi, SSP (Gurgaon), said that “no case was registered after students tendered an apology”, Dean, St. Stephen’s, Sanjay Rao, when contacted by HT, came out strongly against the incident: “We condemn it. I do not have all the details yet as we still have to speak to the students.”
Although Hanif Qureshi, SSP (Gurgaon), said that “no case was registered after students tendered an apology”, Dean, St. Stephen’s, Sanjay Rao, when contacted by HT, came out strongly against the incident: “We condemn it. I do not have all the details yet as we still have to speak to the students.”