Students burn a motorcycle at Ekamra College in Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Oct. 1: Ekamra College was today closed indefinitely and its students’ union polls called off following violence on campus triggered by the rejection of candidature of two presidential aspirants.

At least 15 students and two policemen were injured while property worth nearly Rs 40 lakh was destroyed in the incident.

Police have detained five students.

A group of 150-odd students went on a rampage after the nomination papers of Sunil Khuntia and Ashutosh Swain, both Plus Three second-year commerce students, was rejected after the college authorities had “confirmed” their criminal antecedents from the local police station.

Supporters of both the aspirants locked the main gate for more than two hours, held faculty members hostage in the administrative block and allegedly manhandled them. Reporters, too, were not spared. The protesters then vandalised campus property, besides setting a laboratory and a classroom ablaze.

Eyewitnesses, however, alleged that though one platoon of police, including an assistant commissioner of police, was deployed on the campus, they did not rise to the occasion. The cops swung into action only after senior officers, including police commissioner R.P. Sharma, rushed to the spot. The students then started pelting them with stones and set a police patrol motorcycle on fire. The confrontation had lasted for more than an hour, forcing the police to resort to lathicharge to disperse the mob.

Following the incident, principal Chittaranjan Panda declared sine die closure of the college and cancellation of campus polls. He then proceeded to lodge a complaint with Airfield police station.

The police said the supporters of the two presidential aspirants were involved in a clash on August 5 and cases from both the sides had been registered. “According to the guidelines of the Lyngdoh Commission, we had asked the local police station to check the criminal antecedents of the aspirants, who had filed their nominations. After getting the police report, their candidature was rejected,” said Niranjan Padhy, adviser to the student’s union.

The police said Sunil was a resident of Old Town, while Ashutosh belonged to Sundarpada. “The protest took shape of a major violence as the two candidates were backed by local goons,” said a police official.

In a related incident, unidentified youths today hurled four country-made bombs at Alaka Mahavidyalaya in Jagatsinghpur when the process of withdrawal of nomination papers of the campus polls was going on. One of the bombs burst near the principal’s office. No one was injured.

Similar cases of violence were also witnessed at Nilasaila College and Government Autonomous College, both in Rourkela after the nomination of some of the candidates had been rejected. Student polls have already been cancelled in Utkal University, Maharishi College of Natural Law in Bhubaneswar and Ravenshaw University in Cuttack.