PATIALA: Gunmen mowed down 19 students attending a youth festival at the Thapar Engineering College campus here, some 45 km North of Chandigarh, the capital city early Friday morning, PTI reports.
Five students were injured in the shootout by five gunmen armed with AK47 rifles, who stormed the hostel premises as the students slept.
The incident took place at around 2 am (Local time) when the five came in a car, broke loose the chains at the main gate and drove straight to the hostel.
On reaching the hostel main gate they threatened the watch man at gun point and made him open the main door leading to the rooms where the students were sleeping. They then knocked at the doors of the rooms and opened indiscriminate fire. The terrorists later escaped.
Of the 19 students, 16 died on the spot and the remaining succumbed to their injuries in the hospital.
The dead students belonged to the Chander Shekhar Azad University of Agriculture and Technology, Kanpur and the Regional Engineering College, Kuruk shetra.
Of the five injured, four are battling for life, a police spokesman said.
The bodies of students from Kurukshetra University are being sent through buses while those from Kanpur are being flown to Kanpur by a special Indian Air Force plane, the spokesman said.
Of the 200 students who had assembled here were those from St Siephen’s College and Shri Ram College of Commerce, both in Delhi. Arrangements were being made to send them back to their homes. Umesh Benzamin, a final year student in the Regional Engineering College, Kurukshetra and hailing from Nagpur, was the only one in a position to talk after a bullet was removed from his abdomen: He told PTI in a feeble voice that he woke up hearing the sound of firing initially I thought the sound was of crackers but as I turned my face I saw a person shooting indiscriminately. Then I was hit by a bullet and after that everything became dark, he said.
The incident came ahead of the visit by Rajiv Gandhi to the state to campaign.
Article extracted from this publication >> November 17, 1989
