Lucknow: Budding engineers of IIT-Kanpur are said to be in grip of narcotics and drugs supplied to them in hostels through local sources of the drug mafia active in and around the campus of the prestigious Institution.
The fact was revealed by instituion’s officiating director, Manindra Agarwal, who has sought the help of District administration in cracking down on such elements and ridding the campus of the fast growing menace.
IIT-K administration, on Wednesday, had reached out to Kanpur disitrict magistrate Surendra Singh urging him to thrash out a joint startegy to counter such elements.
According to campus sources, the students have an easy access to all sorts of narcotics from tobacco to cocaine at pan and tea stalls on the campus gate. The role of fourth class employees on the campus in supplying drugs is also under scanner.
The practice has been going on in the hostels for quite some time but the IIT administration has woken up since the situation started getting out of hands. On getting the wind of such activities going on in hostels, IIT administration deputed some professors to probe the issue secretly only to find that at least 25 students were addicted to different drugs. They were identified and reports of many more hostellers taking prohibited drugs were also there.
Confirming the development, Kanpur DM Surendra Singh claimed that district administration had decided to set up teams to round up the drug smugglers active in the area.
Both IIT and Kanpur district administration are contemplating to check the entry of outsiders on campus. The sources said that the local sources and villagers of adjoining areas were used to supply the drug inside the campus. Even the drug mafia have made inroads into the campus in the garb of those locals.
DM Surendra Singh urged the IIT administration to be stricter and asked it to caution hostel wardens to help check the entry of outsiders and unauthorised persons in hostels on campus.
“Police should immediately be informed if a suspect enters the campus,” the DM is believed to have told the IIT administration. He assured the IIT administration of a crackdown on such anti-social elements by setting up police teams under Kalyanpur CO and SO after discussion with Kanpur police chief.
Those unauthorised elements living on campus on one pretext or the other would be shunted out and even the parents of the students of Kendriya Vidyalaya and Kislaya Vidyalaya present on IIT campus would be issue passes.