THE JHARKHAND STORY NETWORK
Daltonganj, Jan 19: Medical students of the MMCH Daltonganj are on the boil. The students are shocked to find searches being carried out last night in the rooms of the hostels there.
Sources said the medicos find this night search as a kind of infringement of their privacy and liberty. Sources said the medicos were given a raw deal. Their mattresses were disoriented. Their cupboards were rummaged. The searchers left their rooms untidy. Sources said the medicos feel a sense of great disappointment.
Sources said the medicos question the entry of the police on the campus at night as if the cops were on the lookout for some outlaws when doctors in the making reside here in the hostels.
Sources said the medicos have a couple of points. First who gave the permission to police to descend on the campus? Again what was the purpose of the searches which were unwarranted and unprovoked? Should girls’ hostel be searched in the way it was searched?
Principal responds to students’ anger
The Jharkhand Story correspondent spoke to the principal of the MMCH Daltonganj Dr P N Mahto to know all that had happened last night on the campus.
The principal said, “I wasn’t there when the searches started. I reached there later.”
“Sadar SDO and her team were there in the hostel. Searches were on. The hostels’ inmates were very angry. They were shouting. They were asking for things to be explained to them,” added the principal.
“I remained on the campus till a few hours after the midnight. The angry medicos were in no mood to listen to me,” said the principal.
On being asked if he was restrained by the medicos the principal said, “The medicos just wanted me to be there to see and hear their fulmination”. He said he reached home around 3 am.
Also Read- Jharkhand News: Administrative search at girls hostel in MMCH Daltonganj sparks outrage
SDO defends search operation, girls’ clothes found in boys’ room
This correspondent spoke to the Sadar SDO Sulochna Meena an IAS officer to know her side of the versions.
According to the Sadar SDO Sulochna Meena, “The administration was getting complaints about the medicos here. The excise sleuths had complaints about marijuana (ganja) being smoked here.”
Asked if the searches yielded to anything objectionable the Sadar SDO Sulochna Meena said very affirmatively and confidently “Yes. There were sachets of the ganja there. We have found a bagful of empty bottles which are of the wine/ beer.”
Sadar SDO Sulochna Meena further said 15 rooms were just searched in which girls’ clothes and other items were retrieved from the rooms of the boys!
Was this search any abrupt or sudden? Sadar SDO Sulochna Meena told “No. It was a planned one. There is no suddenness or abruptness. In fact, the excise sleuths and others were on the job soon after the visit of the Additional Chief Secretary of Health Ajoy Kumar Singh here on January 9.”
Ensuring protocols
Again asked if she had with the team lady officers and cops to which Sadar SDO Sulochna Meena said very categorically “Yes. There were lady magistrates and lady cops. Combined together they were six women officials and cops in numbers.”
Asked whether the warden of the girls’ hostel was with them all through the searches conducted there? Sadar SDO said, “The warden was on the campus.”
Here this correspondent interrupted her asking whether the warden was there with them when searches were so on as it is incumbent on the authorities to have the respective warden of the hostel with them during the searches to which Sadar SDO said, “The searches were made in the full presence of the inmates of the rooms. No room was searched without its inmate. The occupants of the rooms were there right when the searches were in progress.”
Asked if she and her team were mobbed or ghaeroed to which Sadar SDO Sulochna Meena said in no unequivocal tone, “Me and my team was mobbed. I understand this. It was unbecoming of them who are going to be doctors.”
