15 arrested after MBBS students, security guards clash over smoking

NEW DELHI: Fifteen people were arrested after a clash between private security guards and medical students residing at a hostel in the state-run Gautam Buddha University complex in Greater Noida, officials said on Monday. Among them are 11 guards and four first-year MBBS students of the Government Institute of Medical Sciences (GIMS), they said.

Initially, 33 people were detained by police in the aftermath of the episode, which took place late Sunday evening. Police have lodged two FIRs, one on the basis of a complaint by the security guards’ agency and the other by GIMS, an official said.

The clash broke out after a security guard allegedly objected to some students smoking at the Munshi Premchand Hostel on the university campus, a police spokesperson said. “An argument broke out between the two sides around 10.30 pm on Sunday,” the official said.

The incident took place in the Ecotech 1 police station area and is being investigated by senior officials, the spokesperson said, adding more people could be taken into custody. A purported video clip of the clash surfaced on social media, showing some stick-wielding individuals smashing two-wheelers and four-wheelers parked outside the hostel, whose inmates can be heard hurling expletives.

On Monday afternoon, GIMS held a press conference where its senior management said 22 students suffered injuries in the clash and four of them were hospitalised. “Dr Manvendra Vaidya, the warden of GIMS, reached the hostel along with security staff of GIMS when alerted about the episode and tried to pacify both sides.

However, the security guards of GBU did not listen to anyone and thrashed GIMS students inside the hostel and damaged vehicles,” the hospital said in a statement. The FIR against the security personnel includes charges of rioting, unlawful assembly, assault, trespassing, intentional insult and criminal intimidation, a police official said.