By IANS,
Chennai : Tamil and non-Tamil students here clashed over food served in a college hostel Friday that left three students injured, police said. This was the second violent clash between students in the city within three days.
The institution, Hindustan Institute of Engineering Technology, was closed by the authorities following the violence.
According to police, the Tamil and non-Tamil students of the institute, located in the southern part of the city, disagreed over the quality of food served in the hostel mess. The argument soon turned violent with some students assaulting members of the other group with iron pipes.
Eighteen students were arrested. A local court released them in the evening. A local hospital discharged the injured students later, officials said.
The hostel was closed till further notice, a college spokesman told reporters.
Meanwhile, a division bench of the Madras High Court heard petitions on the fracas that took place in the campus of the Dr. Ambedkar Law College on Wednesday that left three students seriously injured. The court heard writ petitions from six advocates, including senior lawyer Sriram Panchu, who argued that the suspended law college principal K.K. Sridev had ignored a committee’s recommendations in 2001 to prevent lawlessness in the campus.
The court adjourned the matter to Tuesday bunching it with another writ petition that had been filed Thursday.
Newly-appointed city police commissioner K. Radhakrishnan told reporters earlier in the day that several teams had been despatched to different parts of the state to apprehend over 20 students of the law college who had beaten their colleagues on Wednesday following disagreement over an invitation for a political event.