Students lodge a complaint with registrar Harapriya Mishra. Picture by Badrika Nath Das

Cuttack, Oct. 14: A student sustained minor injuries in an alleged clash between a group of local students and some Afghan students at Ravenshaw University today.

University sources said Biranchi Narayan Satpathy, a Plus Two student of arts, was allegedly attacked by a group of Afghan students around 5pm following an argument in the parking lot.

“I was discussing the upcoming internal examination with my friends when two Afghan students started misbehaving with us,” said Biranchi, who suffered a lip injury in the alleged attack.

“The Afghan students came in a car and attacked my friend for no reason. We demand security as local students are feeling unsafe following the incident,” said Sukhvinder Singh, a first year BBA student.

Following the incident, a group of local students staged a demonstration outside the office of the Ravenshaw University registrar demanding immediate action against the concerned students.

However, the Afghan students denied the allegations. “We did not attack anybody. They were sitting in the parking lot and confronted them as we thought they passed offensive remarks against us,” said Mujeeb Ullah Samiri, an Afghan student.

Police have been deployed on the campus to check further clashes. University officials said efforts were on to settle the matter amicably. “There was a minor misunderstanding between two student groups and it must not be seen as a clash between Indian and Afghan students. We are trying our best to resolve their differences,” said university registrar Smarapriya Mishra.

On January 13, some local students had locked the university’s main gate protesting against irregularities in their hostel.

A group of Afghan students, who wanted to leave the campus, asked for the gate to be unlocked but the agitating students refused to budge.

This led to a violent clash in which three students were injured, including a BBA student from Afghanistan.

Five days later, 59 Afghan students left for Delhi citing security reasons. Three others, however, had stayed back. The issue assumed huge proportions, forcing the state government to intervene. The then higher education minister Debi Prasad Mishra went to Delhi to speak to the Afghan students, their embassy officials and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, which had facilitated their study here. Mishra and the university authorities had promised full security for them if they returned to Orissa.

Following this, the students agreed to return and finish their courses. They came back on January 25, but said they would stay in Bhubaneswar, not in Cuttack. However, they later went back to their hostel.