The institute, 44km from Gangtok, which had been rocked by clashes between hostel residents and local day scholars over the past few days, became a war zone yesterday with police storming a hostel at one point after being hit by stones.
The tech school was shut down indefinitely after the incident but students could not leave hostels on the campus as local people laid siege to the campus till late last night.
After the siege was lifted, the Sikkim government arranged for buses and taxis to ferry students wanting to leave for Siliguri.
“We have paid a huge amount for our courses and we will return to the SMIT only because of that. The management of the institute will have to ensure our security on the premises,” a first-year student of applied electronics and instrument from Bandel in Hooghly said at the bus stand in Siliguri.
The students complained that no security had been arranged for them on the way down. “We saw two police constables, carrying sticks, seated in one of the buses that brought the students down. If this is security, we have nothing more to say,” said a first-year mechanical engineering student from Upper Assam.
One of the students stuck in hostel last night had said: “We are being targeted by outsiders.”
The vice-chancellor of Sikkim Manipal University, S.S. Pabla, today said in Gangtok the institute was approaching the police for a permanent picket on the campus. “I thank the police and the state government for defusing the situation. I also appeal to the police to take up the investigations sensitively as the future of students is at stake. We will open the institute soon,” he said.
Many of the boarders stayed back in their hostels.
The clashes had started on Sunday over a foul during a volleyball friendly. Three hostel residents were thrashed allegedly by local students accompanied by outsiders during the brawl, which then assumed a different colour altogether.
In Sikkim, East district superintendent of police M.S. Tuli said 130 taxis and 18 buses had been arranged to ferry the students to Siliguri. “They started vacating the hostels from early in the morning.”
North Bengal inspector-general K.L. Tamta said police stations on the students’ route had been put on alert.
