Ekamra college violence: Cops arrest 6 students

Bhubaneswar: The Commissionerate Police on Wednesday arrested six students of Ekamra College here in connection with students’ union poll violence in the college premises on Tuesday.

The arrested persons were identified as Purnendu Pujapanda, Bidyadhar Samantray, Radhamohan Nayak, Abinash Mohapatra, Rakesh Parida and Kaushik Patra. They were Plus III students of the college and forwarded to court on Wednesday.

Sources said these six students were arrested on the charges of rioting, ransacking college campus, vandalism and attacking police. The cops and college authorities have filed two separate cases against the students.

Notably, angry over the rejection of two presidential candidates’ nomination papers, a group of students ransacked office, classrooms and laboratory equipment of the college and clashed with police. Later the college was closed sine die and students’ union polls for this year were cancelled.

Meanwhile, Police Commissioner Dr R P Sharma cautioned other colleges about eruption of similar kind of violence looking at the forthcoming students' union polls.

"Principals and management of colleges, which are prone to such kind of violence, should be very careful. We request authorities of these colleges to inform police on time in case any untoward incident happens," said Sharma.