Date:05/05/2007 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2007/05/05/stories/2007050521290500.htm

Karnataka - Bangalore

Security needs to be tightened on university campus

Patrolling the Jnana Bharati campus has become a hard task, writes K.V. Subramanya

EVEN AS cases of murder, rape and robbery are being regularly reported from Bangalore University's Jnana Bharati campus, authorities have not taken adequate steps to strengthen the security there.

Over the years, it has turned into a safe haven for criminals to carry out their activities. In the latest incident, a 12-year-old girl was sexually abused at a dilapidated building on the campus on Sunday evening.

The most shocking of the crimes that have taken place on the campus was the gang rape of a woman, whose husband was in Central Jail, by taxi drivers in April 2005. Four men raped her in front of her children.

A few months ago, three men kidnapped a Mumbai-based electrician from the Majestic area in an autorickshaw, took him to the Jnana Bharati campus and robbed him of Rs. 7,000near the Physical Education Department.

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

Though the elite SPG and the city police had cordoned off the campus area and conducted security checks on January 2, criminals had hoodwinked the security personnel, 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.

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

The desolate wooded areas on the campus were rendezvous for young lovers who stayed there till late in the night. Such lovers were becoming the soft targets of chain snatchers and robbers, the official said.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (West) K.V. Sharathchandra, there are five entrances to the campus and only one has a gate. This has resulted in free access to the campus.

Following increase in crime on the campus, a year ago the police requested the university authorities to install gates at all the entrances and take up the construction of compound wall. "The university has not done that. I will immediately take up the matter with the Registrar Sanjay Veer Singh," Mr. Sharthchandra told The Hindu.

A constable, along with a Home Guard hired by the university, was being posted at each of the five entrances from 8 p.m. to 8 a.m. But crimes were being reported during the other hours of the day, he said.

According to the police, though the university posts 22 Home guards on the campus in the night, they have not been able to patrol the nearly 2,000-acre-vast campus. Patrolling the Jnana Bharati campus has become a herculean task even for the local police as nearly 40 per cent of the area in the West division of the city police falls under the jurisdiction of the Jnana Bharati police station.