BANGALORE: Following a spate of crimes on the Jnanabharathi campus, the city police have decided to write to the Bangalore University authorities asking them to install gates to the sprawling campus and post security guards.

The Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime), M.C. Narayana Gowda, told The Hindu on Monday that he will write to the university authorities to install gates at all the entrances to the campus and post security guards there from 7 p.m. to 5 a.m. daily as crimes are occurring during these hours.

"There is a thoroughfare to Mallathalli and Mysore Road through the campus. There is a need to restrict entry on these two roads," Mr. Gowda said.

On Sunday night, a construction worker was gang-raped by taxi drivers on the campus and this has made the police write to the university authorities.

Over the years, several murders, chain snatching incidents and robberies have been reported from the campus that has vast wooded areas. For instance, on March 30, a three-member gang robbed a man of gold ornaments, a mobile phone and Rs. 2,500 in cash near the university's main office on the campus.

In the most sensational case, criminals had brought the body of a man they had murdered and set it afire on the campus, a few hours before the then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited the campus to inaugurate the 90th Indian Science Congress on January 3, 2003.

Though the elite Special Protection Group and the city police had cordoned off the campus area and conducted security checks on January 2, some criminals had hoodwinked them, brought the body and set it on fire on the night of January 2 near the Gandhi Smarak Bhavan on the Sports Authority of India Road on the campus. The security guards of the university saw the body in the early hours of January 3 and informed the police about it around 1 a.m.

A senior police official said there have been instances of criminals summoning their victims to the vast, wooded and desolate campus during the nights and murdering him there.

The Deputy Commissioner of Police (West), K.V. Sharathchandra, said the desolate wooded areas on the campus are rendezvous for young lovers who stay there till late at night. "They are becoming the soft targets of chain snatchers and robbers," he said.

Though there are night-beat policemen on the campus, it is difficult for them to cover the entire area. Around 40 per cent of the area in the West Division of the city police falls under the jurisdiction of the Jnanabharathi police station. It includes several new private and Bangalore Development Authority layouts, ring roads and villages on the outskirts of the city, Mr. Sharathchandra said.

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