For Priya* and Nisha*, December has been a nightmare. Not only have they both lost valuable items from their hostel rooms in the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Trichy campus to burglary, they have also been at the receiving end of apathy from the institute’s management. Priya and Nisha are among the several PhD scholars studying in the National Institute of Technology, Trichy who have alleged mass ransacking and burglary from their locked hostel rooms. Out of close to 200 rooms in NIT-T’s Beryl Hostel complex, which is a girls’ hostel, the locks of at least 12 rooms were reportedly broken and items were robbed.
According to the students who spoke to TNM, they were asked to vacate the hostels on March 17, 2020, days ahead of the nationwide lockdown due to COVID-19 pandemic. “We were given very short notice to vacate and hence we couldn’t really take everything we needed back with us,” Priya told TNM. The lack of time to pack and make arrangements led to many residents leaving several valuable items like laptops, phones, watches and jewellery in their rooms, believing that a lock and the institute’s security arrangements would keep them safe until the students’ return.
It wasn’t until the second week of December that the residents of Beryl Hostel were made aware of the large-scale burglary that had taken place in their block. “We have a WhatsApp group for those living in the hostel. In December, one of our older students had secured permission to go to the hostel and bring back some of her essential items. She messaged in the group after visiting and informed us that there has been a break-in. After that, a few of the first-year students also messaged in the group that when they went to the rooms in October to pick up some things, their rooms were also broken in. We asked them why they didn’t inform us back then, and they told us they were scared and hence were silent,” Priya said.
Priya and Nisha both allege that multiple complaints to the hostel warden, the security officer, the dean and the director have not yielded any response.
“We alerted our warden, who told us to check with the security officer. When we did that, we were told to inform the dean and the director. They are just pointing fingers at others and not giving us any concrete information about this,” Nisha explained. She added that when the students asked to physically check their belongings, the management denied permission. “They told us that the police were there to collect fingerprints and did not allow us to take stock of our things,” Nisha added.
One of the main contentions of the students is that they were asked to pay Rs 4,000 during their absence at the hostel towards ‘security' and 'maintenance' charges, and hence they believe the institute is responsible for the safety of the things inside their locked rooms.
After many emails, the assistant warden of Beryl Hostel, on December 23, released a list of 12 rooms whose locks were found broken. “At least three laptops, a Kindle e-reader, several electronic devices, at least three watches and a few clothing items are missing now. We still don’t know the accurate picture since they are not allowing us to go there and check,” Nisha said.
The state of the room as captured by one of the students
The students further said that when they approached the Thuvakkudi police to lodge a complaint about the theft in their personal capacity, the police refused to take their complaints. “They said that only our college can lodge a complaint on the matter. So we demanded that the college show us the complaint copy since they have been telling us that the police are taking fingerprints in the rooms, whenever we wanted to visit,” Priya said. After many students raised their voices and demanded a copy of the FIR, the institute shared a receipt of the complaint they filed with the police on December 23. The complaint was given by the Security Officer of NIT-T. The copy of the receipt, accessed by TNM, does not mention any specific details about the incident.
“Even in that, there are no details about the items lost or the number of rooms broken in or anything in specific. It all seems very fishy,” the students alleged.
TNM has requested the Director of NIT-T, Mini Shaji Thomas, for responses for a list of queries connected to the burglary allegations. The story will be updated if and when we receive the responses.
*Names changed