Lucknow, Oct. 23: Two Gorakhpur University students were tied to their hostel beds and set ablaze last night in the latest incident of campus crime in Uttar Pradesh.

Doctors at the nursing home where Meeruj Ahmed, 23, and Bantu Singh, 20, have been admitted with 60 per cent burns said their condition was “critical”. Authorities have ruled out ragging as the motive. The incident comes over a month after a clash outside the university campus had left six students injured. The skirmishes, blamed on the BJP-affiliated students’ union and the rival body tied to Samajwadi Party, had prompted authorities to postpone student union elections.

The tie-and-burn incident also follows the murder-sparked backlash that had led to arson and, eventually, to the shutdown of Aligarh Muslim University last month.

Six youths barged into Meeruj and Bantu’s room, in the university’s Sant Kavirnagar hostel in the heart of Gorakhpur, and overpowered them before setting them ablaze, police said. The assailants fled as the boys burnt.

Other students couldn’t immediately respond to the duo’s cries for help because the main gate leading to their room was locked. Later, they broke down the gate, doused the fire and rushed the two to the nursing home.

Viswadeep Srivastava, a senior district police officer, said after preliminary investigations that the incident wasn’t linked to ragging but was a case of “old enmity”. “We have detained some people and an FIR has been registered against six persons, including two students.”

University proctor Vinay Pandey promised stepped-up security. “We are yet to know what caused the incident,” Pandey said.

Meeruj, an MA first-year student, is from the neighbouring Deoria district, while Bantu, in his BA second year, hails from a village in Gorakhpur district.

On September 17, Aligarh Muslim University had erupted over the death of Mazhar Nazim. The second-year BSc student was stabbed twice in the head and in the neck near the university’s sports complex. His was the third murder in six months.