Agitating students in front of the institute?s administrative building. Picture by Vivek Singh

Kurseong May 21: Students of Darjeeling Polytechnic, here, went on an indefinite strike from yesterday to protest against the administration?s inaction against a second-year student who had reportedly stabbed a third-year student on May 14.

Tenzing Zigme, of the computer science technology department, has been accused of stabbing civil engineering student Ajay Sinha, five times on the body. Ajay, who was admitted to a private nursing home, is believed to be out of danger and is currently at home in Naxalbari, near Siliguri.

The incident had taken place at the house of Raju Lama at Manbir Busty near the college where Tenzing lived as a paying guest. However, students alleged that Tenzing carries the knife even to college.

?We have called the indefinite strike because we feel that students are not safe in the college. This is not the first time Tenzing has beaten up students. We demand his expulsion,? said student leader Bishal Lama.

The students also claimed that the police had arrested Tenzing, but let him go within an hour. When asked about this allegation, inspector in-charge of Kurseong police station Tara Rai said: ?Since Ajay?s parents did not want to lodge a complaint, we had to leave Tenzing.?

Principal of the college Poojan Sarkar refuted the allegations of administrative inaction. ?We will form a fact-finding committee and send the report to the higher authorities in Calcutta. In a meeting held yesterday with the students? representative, it was decided that provisions will be made to transfer Tenzing to another college.?

Till late today, it was not clear whether the students will withdraw their agitation.

Yesterday the students did not let the authorities hold a meeting of the institute?s governing body, the first to be held in the past five years. The importance of the meeting, a source said, lay in the fact that various development projects, along with proposals to introduce new courses, were supposed to be discussed in it. At present, Darjeeling Polytechnic is the only technical institute in the hills offering diploma courses in civil, electrical and computer engineering.

The students, however, did allow the institute to be used as a centre for the Joint Entrance Examination, for which students from the plains as well as the hills flocked here yesterday and today.