A Nigerian student at Roorkee Institute of Technology, Uttarakhand, India simply named Ibrahim and his Ghanaian counterpart Benjamin were assaulted on the college premises last week after they went out for dinner without a pass.
The school administration, it was gathered, had not granted passes since March due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“Students faced problems after they ran out of money. They use to have their meals in the college canteen, but the manager stopped providing food after the student failed to pay,” India.com quoted a local source as saying.
“They wanted to go to their friends’ homes but the college administration did not give permission. They stepped out and upon their return got into a fight with guard and later college administration called goons to beat them up. They were badly beaten up and people recorded videos too.”
One of the videos which went viral shows men numbering about 20 beating up the two students.
Benjamin told Indian News Agency: “They dragged Ibrahim from the second floor to the ground floor. They hit me with bamboo sticks. Then the police arrived at the spot and rushed us to a hospital.”
The incident sparked protests outside the college gates in solidarity with the assaulted students.
Benjamin alleged that the school management hired the men from a private security guard agency, Hawk Commando, to forcefully remove them from the campus after the police had advised the administration against it and asked them to take it up with the relevant embassy.
Chairman/CEO of the Nigerians in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM) Abike Dabiri-Erewa told The Punch that the school director Parag Jain and seven others culpable in the matter had been arrested.
