A student beaten up by residents on the NIT campus in Manipur. Telegraph picture

Life at stake, seventy-five and odd scared students from Bihar want to leave NIT-Imphal immediately.

The budding techies — terrified after two back-to-back assaults on students from outside Manipur and confined to their hostel rooms for the past four days — are ready to sacrifice their bright career ahead for survival despite Manipur chief minister Okram Ibobi Singh’s assurance to them on safety and security. They have urged the Bihar government to shift them to other institutions.

When The Telegraph contacted a Patna student studying at NIT-Imphal on Monday, his first words were: “Please save us. Please do something so that we are shifted to a safer place.”

A source said around 200 students from outside, including 75 from Bihar, have stopped going to the hostel mess for meals from Friday. They are surviving on water and biscuits.

Trouble had broken out at the institute at Langol in Imphal West district, about 5km from Manipur capital Imphal, on the night of September 11 over a senior student hailing from the Northeast state jumping queues in the mess. A minor altercation snowballed into a clash and the local students allegedly beat up the outsiders in the hostel mercilessly.

The next day, a group of local people (not students of NIT) attacked three students from Bihar and one each from Andhra Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh at the Imphal market.

The Patna student said: “The locals attacked the students from outside with knuckle dusters on the provocation of some Manipuri students of NIT.” After the injured students reached the hostel, the students from other states protested against the incident.

When police reached the spot, the Manipuri students fled to their hostel rooms. The cops allegedly caned the students from outside.

The student from the city confided to The Telegraph that the outsiders were scared of not only the Manipuri students and local people, but also of the police.

Following the trouble, Manipur chief minister Ibobi Singh, accompanied by education minister Moirangthem Oken Singh, visited the campus on Saturday and assured non-local students that they were safe inside and outside the campus. But after the chief minister left, some Manipuri students allegedly threatened their peers from other states.

Ibobi Singh reviewed the situation on the NIT-Imphal campus on Monday again. It was the second time since Sunday that he reviewed the situation with top police and civil officers at his secretariat. He had discussed the matter with his ministers on Sunday night.

Official sources claimed that the Manipur chief minister was concerned about “wrong reports” published in a section of the media outside Manipur, particularly in Andhra Pradesh. They also denied the charge that the police had assaulted the students.

They said state education commissioner P. Vaiphei had written to the institute’s authorities, asking them to take stern action against criminal elements (among students) on the campus.

Manipur director-general of police Shahid Ahmad told The Telegraph over phone from Imphal: “The situation at NIT-Imphal is under control. The police have been deployed there for providing security to the students.” He also said CRPF personnel would be deployed on the campus as a confidence-building measure.

According to a source, the decision to deploy CRPF on the institute premises was taken after Bihar chief minister Jitan Ram Manjhi talked to Union home minister Rajnath Singh.

Akhil Dhaman, a senior army officer of Bihar Regiment posted at Manipur, visited the NIT hostel on Monday and talked to the students from outside. He assured them that they would be shifted to other places safely.

An NIT-Imphal student from Bihar said: “The officer assured us of full security. He also said the army would talk to the Manipur chief minister on the issue of shifting us from NIT-Imphal.”