Ganga Darshan Apartment, which houses the girls’ hostel of NIT-Patna, at Kurji. Picture by Ashok Sinha

National Institute of Technology, Patna, director Asok De visited the temporary hostel for women students at Kurji on Sunday morning and issued guidelines to ensure their security.

The students had complained to the director on Saturday about trespassers whom they had seen on the intervening night of Friday and Saturday.

On Sunday, De said: “Students will have to return to hostels by 7pm and would not be allowed to leave their flats after 10pm. If someone falls sick she will have to take permission from the warden to go out.”

He also directed the girls to move in groups and not to venture out alone after they complained about eve teasing. De asked the warden to ensure that men are not allowed to enter the hostel premises. “Apart from the security guard here, we shall also appoint a retired armyman to take charge of the hostel security.”

Narrating the scary incident that prompted the security beef-up, a final-year BTech student said: “We were studying in a room on the fourth floor when we saw there was a stranger on the balcony outside. It was around 3am. We were terrified.”

The girls immediately bolted the door connecting the room to the balcony. Through the eyehole on the other door of the room, they spotted another man on the passage outside. This is not the first time that such an incident has occurred. Students living in the apartment have complained about anonymous knocks on the door of their flats earlier.

NIT-Patna is functioning out of a temporary campus on Ashok Rajpath while the new campus is being constructed in Bihta. As the hostel for women students on the Ashok Rajpath campus of the institute is undergoing renovation, the NIT has provided alternative accommodation to the students at Ganga Darshan Apartment in Kurji, a residential area. Bihar State Religious Trust Board chairman Acharya Kunal Kishore also lives in the area. Around 115 students have been put up at 15 flats, taken on rent. The hostel warden and a retired professor of the institute also live there.

How is the security arrangement at your hostel? Tell ttbihar@abp.in