Students ransack hotel, kidnap two staff in Odisha capital

Reported by Santosh Jagdev
Bhubaneswar, May 4:

A group of Odisha University of Agricultural Technology (OUAT) students attacked a hotel owner Jambeswar Sahoo and ransacked the hotel over nothing more important than a few rotis on Sunday evening.

According to Jambeswar Sahoo, the owner of the hotel located in Bhimpur area under Airfield police limits, around 20 students of OUAT wearing black masks and holding hockey sticks, swords and sharp weapons in their hand, entered the hotel and ransacked hotel properties like chair, table, television, sweets cupboard and attacked the hotel boy Bapi Gouda.

“The irate students also attacked me and my brother Rajkishore Sahoo when he intervened in the matter. Later, they forcibly took my brother and hotel boy with them,” the hotel owner said.

When contacted, Airfield police washed their hands of saying it came under the jurisdiction of Khandagiri police.

The attack by the OUAT students on Sunday evening was a sequel to an incident that took place involving the same set of students on April 30.

On that day, around 12 Post Graduate (PG) students staying in OUAT hostel No 2 had entered the hotel and asked the hotel boy to pack 30 chapatis (rotis). Alleging delay in serving the food, the students had gone on a rampage.

The hotel owner reported the matter to  the Airfield police station to report the matter on the day of the incident. But police failed to take any action on the reported matter, Sahoo alleged.