Date:14/11/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/11/14/stories/2008111461390800.htm

Tamil Nadu

Police got intelligence alert on students’ clash

S. Vijay Kumar

Specific input, issued around noon, had identified main target

Students object to police entering campus on Thursday
Four more students arrested, police form special teams

CHENNAI: The city police, who came under sharp criticism for remaining mute spectators to the violent clash among students at the Dr. Ambedkar Government Law College here on Wednesday, had advance information about the impending assault plan.

At around noon on Wednesday, the State intelligence had alerted the city police that a clash was likely after the semester examination.

“The inputs were so specific that we even said K. Bharathi Kannan, who was in the examination hall, was the main target and he was in possession of a knife. Students were armed with clubs, rods and tubelights on the campus to attack him,” Inspector-General of Police (Intelligence) M.S. Jaffar Sait, told The Hindu on Thursday.

Ruling out the possibility of intelligence failure, he said hours before the attack, the city police had deployed an Assistant Commissioner of Police, Inspector, four Sub-Inspectors and 50 policemen in front of the college. “A decision on entering the campus should have been taken by the senior most officer at the scene, the ACP in this case…”

According to police sources, simmering differences between the students of two different communities escalated further with the printing of a handbill by some students on October 30 (Thevar Jayanthi celebrations).

Campus tense

Tension prevailed on the college premises on Thursday morning when a group of students objected to the police entering the campus and checking their identity cards. Two students scaled the college building and threatened to jump if the police did not leave. Some students demanded the arrest of the real accused and ransacked the chamber of the Principal, the police said.

Commissioner of Police R. Sekar said four more students had been arrested. “We have identified 20 students involved in the attack with the help of photographs. Special teams have been formed to apprehend the suspects.”

He said security personnel had been deployed at the hospital where the injured students have been admitted.