Reports from Namakkal in Tamil Nadu say that the murder of Deepak (20), a junior student of a private engineering college there, by senior students was not perhaps a case of mere ragging but could have been the result of the “gang war” among students which is said to have become rampant in self-financing professional colleges in that State.
Deepak from Thalipparambu, Kannur and first-year Electrical and Electronics Engineering student of a Namakkal college, was killed by a gang of seven third-year students of the same college last Thursday by hitting his motorbike with a car. Deepak’s friend Dineesh, who was with him on the bike, is undergoing treatment for serious injuries suffered in the attack.
Keralite students doing engineering courses at self-financing colleges in Coimbatore, Erode, Salem, Namakkal and other places in Tamil Nadu say that the incidents of rivalry among student gangs vying among themselves for canvassing students to be admitted to colleges turning into violent clashes are quite common these days.
“As competition among self-financing engineering colleges for getting students for enrolment is growing by the day, students are used as brokers for canvassing them. Colleges pay them well for this, which has become a lucrative business for students who want extra money for booze and narcotics,” said Suresh Nair, a student of a Namakkal college.
Students of the Gnanamani College of Engineering, Namakkal where Deepak was studying, however, said he was not a member of any such gang. “It seems that this murder was indeed a case of ragging but the murderers were perhaps members of such a gang,” said a Keralite student of the college.
According to students, it is an open secret that college managements engage senior students in the job of canvassing students for admission from Kerala. They say that the managements pay up to `25,000 or `40,000 to senior students as commission for one admission that comes through them. This arrangement has led to birth of students’ “admission gangs”, they say.
“A senior student may earn up to `150,000 during the admission time through this business,” said the student of an Erode college. “As competition has become tighter on this front, several gangs have taken shape among them. It is not uncommon to have one gang to have as its members students from several colleges,” he said.
On an average, more than 25,000-30,000 students from Kerala seek admission in the self-financing colleges in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. As the number of private colleges in these States has gone up considerably, competition for getting students for admission also has intensified, making the services of student brokers inevitable, it is said.
As such students are essential for their business, it is normal for the college managements to turn a blind eye towards incidents of ragging involving them. “The fact is that these gangs of student brokers have now become a huge force by themselves that the managements are unable to control them,” said a teacher of a Coimbatore college with Keralite involvement in management.
Students and teachers say that the money these gangs make through admission-brokering is spent entirely on booze, narcotics and stylish living, leading to criminalisation of the campus. As the same gang could have students from several colleges, an effective criminal network involving several campuses has already been formed in many cities in Tamil Nadu, they say.