Lucknow: Some "30 to 40" students at IIT Kanpur have turned drug addicts, prompting the institute to seek police help to check peddling on the campus, officers said.
"Counselling of the students is on to help them quit the habit. We have requested the district authorities to help us," institute officiating director Manindra Agrawal told reporters in Kanpur on Saturday.
Suspecting the peddlers are local people, the authorities have barricaded the road from the Nankari neighbourhood to the institute, with passes issued to the parents of the pupils of the Kendriya Vidyalaya on the campus.
Officers told The Telegraph the institute had learnt of the drug problem five months ago but had revealed it only now. The counselling of students began on Friday.
"The situation was getting out of hand. Many of the students had turned 24x7 addicts and stopped attending classes," a police officer said in Lucknow, asking not to be identified.
"Some 30 to 40 hostel boarders, mostly from the fifth to eighth semester, have been regularly taking ganja, charas and heroin. Some rich students also take cocaine."
He added: "Many BTech students fail to clear all their papers in the semester exams, causing supplementary papers to accumulate by the time they reach the fifth semester. It is at this stage that some of them get frustrated and take a wrong turn."
One of the institute's security guards was arrested with 2kg of ganja three months ago but the IIT had at the time claimed he was peddling the drug outside the campus.
On Friday, the institute blocked the entry of the 24 washermen who used to collect the students' clothes every day, and installed washing machines in the hostels.
"We'll ensure that outsiders don't enter the campus without identity proof," Kanpur district magistrate Surendra Singh said.
Senior superintendent of police Akhilesh Meena said the institute had not provided a list of the addicts.
"We are trying to identifying the drug suppliers and will arrest them soon. A superintendent of police is probing the case," he said.
Officers suspect that apart from the 30-40 addicts, some of the institute's other 4,000 students may be taking drugs recreationally.
