Muzaffarpur: The Muzaffarpur Institute of Technology has been closed till further orders in view of unrest among students there.

The engineering students had indulged in vandalism there to protest the brutal assault on Amit Kumar, a third-year student, by inmates of Duke hostel on the Babasaheb Bhimrao Ambedkar Bihar University campus, 4km away, on Friday. MIT students were at the university exam hall to write their semester exam when inmates of a post-graduate hostel and those of Langat Singh College's Duke Hostel, both inside the campus, got into a fight, hurling bombs and indulging in indiscriminate firing.

The examinees intervened to bring peace but Amit sustained injuries in the process.

This angered MIT examinees, who boycotted the exam and protested before MIT principal Jagdanand Jha. They damaged college property after which the principal lodged an FIR against unidentified MIT students at Barhampura police station.

The principal said the institute had been shut for now. He approached district magistrate (DM) Dharmendra Kumar Singh, who ordered for immediate evacuation. Fearing forcible eviction, inmates of all five hostels left on Sunday evening itself. The hostels have been locked and keys handed over to station house officer (SHO) Upendra Kumar Singh.

The principal said women hostel inmates were persuaded to vacate the hostel on their own. Shujata Kumari, a second year civil engineering student, said girl students met the authorities against leaving the hostel but to no avail.

The principal said the ongoing semester exam has been postponed but the students refused to write the exam at the Brabu exam hall.

Deputy superintendent of police (SP) Ashish Anand said the hostels have been vacated. There is heavy deployment of police there.