Ten people were injured, one of them grievously, when two groups of Indian and Afghanistan students clashed at the National Institute of Technology (NIT) in steel town Rourkela in Odisha’s Sundergarh district late on Saturday night.
According to a report reaching the state headquarters from the western Odisha town, the clash took place following an argument over a trivial issue during a cultural event at the reputed educational institute.
Following the incident, all the 23 students from Afghanistan have been taken to a local hotel and kept under police protection.
The injured student has been admitted into the local Ispat General Hospital (IGH).
The institute authorities were trying to restore normalcy in the campus. Six platoons of police have been deployed in the institute as tension prevailed on the campus.
This is not for the first time that problems have erupted in a state-based educational institute involving Afghanistan students who mostly get admission through exchange programmes between the governments of India and Afghanistan. Recently, a similar violence had taken place between the local students and students from Afghanistan at the Cuttack-based Ravenshaw University, a leading educational institute.
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