16 medical students arrested, 16 more wanted

Dharamshala, Jul 27 (UNI) The Kangra district police arrested 16 medical students of Dr R P Government Medical College at Tanda in Himachal Pradesh during the night-long raids in different hostels of the institute for their role in rioting, arson, criminal trespass and robbery yesterday.

Kangra SP Atul Fulzele said all the arrested students were studying in the first year of MBBS.

Two students, identified as Mukul Sharma and Abinav Verma, were arrested last evening after the riots and remaining 14 were arrested during the night-long raids, he added.

He said those arrested were Ankush Gautam, Vivek Sharma, Kaushal Katoch, Parveen Kumar, Raj Kumar, Neeraj Sharma, Naveen Verma, Digvijay Singh Thakur, Arjun Kumar, Sohail Sharma, Prashant Sharma, Pankaj Chouhan, Abimanu Patial and Maninder Singh.

In all, 32 students were involved in yesterday's incident, he said and added the police were still searching for 16 more students who did not return to the hostel after the incident.

Mr Fulzele said police was carrying out raids at different hide- outs to arrest the absconding students.

A case under Section 147, 148, 149, 323, 452 and 392 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) has been registered against the students involved in arson, rioting, assault, criminal trespass and robbery, he said.

The college Principal said, ''If the students are involved in the anti-social activities, they should be punished and college management will help the police in curbing such activities.'' He said after going through the facts these students will be asked to vacate their hostels.

A group of medical students had attacked a mobile shop and ransacked it, which was followed by a clash between these students and local shopkeepers, leaving a dozen people injured.

The attack by the students followed a mild altercation between the shopkeeper's son and a few medical students on Friday evening.

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