White medical college students claim hostel rooms for boys, girls ransacked

More than 250 students of The White Medical College and Hospital, formerly known as Chintpurni Medical College and Hospital, Bungal, have claimed that their hostel rooms have been ransacked leading to the loss of important documents, including notes, and electrical and electronic gadgets and personal belongings.

Scores of visibly upset parents and their wards visited the college premises on Thursday to take back their belongings. Today, many students claimed that religious books they had kept in their rooms along with deities were taken away. Students alleged that locks of their rooms were broken.

“There is not a single room in both the boys’ and girls’ hostels where locks have not been tampered with or broken. The moment my daughter entered her room, she fainted after coming to know that her laptop, fridge and clothes were missing,” said a parent.

Students had left the medical college around two months ago after a controversy had erupted over the functioning of the institute. “When students came to the college today to collect their belongings, they were taken aback after seeing that their rooms had been “ransacked”. Their personal belongings, too, were nowhere to be seen,” said Rakesh Gupta, whose son Satyam Gupta is a student of the medical college.

Gupta today alleged that whenever parents approached the police to know the status of their complaints, they were told that “an investigation was in progress in this connection”.

“For how long will this torture continue? The future of our children is at stake. The notes on the basis of which they have to appear in their examinations, too, have been taken away,” said Gupta.

Students went to the Mamun police station to get an FIR registered, he said. “However, our wards were told to file individual complaints because they were living in separate rooms at the hostels. We are now filing written complaints with the police,” said Gupta.

Till now, 140 boys and girls have filed complaints with the police. Dr Deepak Jhangra, a doctor from Ludhiana, whose ward studies in the college, said it was now up to the police to investigate who took away belongings of students and when these were taken away.

Parents had also approached Deputy Commissioner Aditya Uppal to apprise him of their grievances. “I am acting as a bridge between the parents and the medical college management. No injustice would be done to anybody, I can assure you that,” Uppal said.

SSP Daljinder Singh Dhillon said the entire matter was under investigation. “First of all, we are inquiring whether the allegations levelled by students and their parents are true or not. Only then we can proceed. I can assure students and their parents that there would be a free and fair investigation,” the SSP said.

He admitted that the police had received complaints from students.

Swaran Salaria, chairman of the college management committee is also the state vice-president of the Aam Aadmi Party. “We understand that Salaria is a powerful person by virtue of being a senior office-bearer of the ruling dispensation in Punjab. We hope this does not have an adverse impact on the investigation,” said a parent.

Neither Salaria nor any other member of the medical college management committee was available for comments on the issue. Repeated phone calls to Salaria went unanswered.