OC Mrityunjoy Banerjee in hospital. Picture by Pradip Baithya

Durgapur Aug. 31: Around 200 students of the National Institute of Technology (NIT) went on the rampage at a motel-cum-bar a little after midnight yesterday, injuring three police officers.

According to police, trouble started around 12.10 last night when six students of the institute, formerly known as Regional Engineering College, came to the bar by the highway at Faridpur, about 210 km from Calcutta, in a drunken state and demanded alcohol. Bar manager Ananda Ghosh refused and a war of words followed.

The six ? all residents of the institute hostel ? then started hurling chairs, dragged Ghosh out and smashed bottles and tubelights.

Bar employees informed Durgapur police station from where a small contingent, including officer-in-charge Mrityunjoy Banerjee, rushed to the spot. The six had left by then, but an hour later, they returned with nearly 200 students.

Carrying hockey sticks, tubelights, bamboo sticks and bricks, the army of students scaled the motel’s boundary wall just as employees were about to down the shutters.

They beat up the staff and injured the OC and two other officers when they tried to intervene. While Banerjee suffered a collarbone fracture, Sudip Dasgupta, the OC of the Waria police outpost, was hit on the chest by a bamboo stick and assistant sub-inspector Vivek Ghosh was injured on his forehead.

Outnumbered by the students, the policemen had to beat a retreat. Sometime later, a bigger force led by additional superintendent of police Anand Kumar was sent to the motel. The students dispersed only when Kumar ordered the police to launch a baton-charge.

Six students were rounded up, while the rest fled under the cover of darkness.

Those arrested were produced in the Durgapur sub-divisional magistrate’s court. They were fined Rs 500 each and released on bail.

The police conducted raids in the hostel throughout the night but the six who triggered the clash could not be traced.

“I have asked the NIT authorities to identify the culprits and hand them over to us. We have started a criminal case against all six arrested. They have been charged with attacking our officers. We cannot expect students who come through all-India-level exams to be involved in such hooliganism,” said Kumar.

The director of the institute, A.C. Ganguly, promised that the guilty would be brought to book.