Following the attack on international students at the Gujarat University hostel compound, police in their probe are suspecting a complex web of factors that may have triggered the violence.
Investigators received information that the intolerance over their food habits, the alleged ‘love affair’ of a foreign student with a local woman and offering namaz outside the hostel rooms are among the possible triggers for the attack.
Investigation has revealed that a local group intensified their vigilance after rumours surfaced about a romantic involvement between a foreign student and a local woman.
“Our probe has revealed that some group members temporarily stayed in Block B, located across Block A where the foreign students resided, to ascertain if a local woman was meeting a foreign student. They stayed for four days and noticed some foreign Muslim students regularly offering namaz in the open,” said a senior police officer.
Resentment also brewed over the dietary preferences of international students, particularly their consumption of non-vegetarian food. “Some students complained that the leftover non-vegetarian food was being discarded improperly,” said another officer.
Police officers are leaving no stone unturned in their quest for justice, probing all angles to apprehend the perpetrators and prevent similar clashes in the future.
Meanwhile, senior police officials said that interrogation of the accused revealed that one of the persons involved in the violence placed a call against the international students to the police control room, falsely claiming that they were encroaching upon the hostel space.
A violent mob ransacked Block A of the Gujarat University boys’ hostel following a dispute over namaz being offered on the premises on March 16. In the attack, three students — one each from Sri Lanka, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan— were injured and had to be admitted to SVP Hospital. Cops have so far arrested five men under the charges of rioting and causing grievous hurt, among other charges under the IPC.
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