Mangalore: Women's hostel inmates live in terror of intruders

Naveen Menezes
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (NM)

Mangalore, Oct 7: Nearly 60 inmates of Minority Post Graduate Women’s Hostel, Deralakatte, live in nightmare. The inmates - mostly students of Mangalore University - complain that the hostel is situated in ‘an inappropriate place’, and has a lot of problems, including intruders banging on doors in the wee hours.

According to police reports registered in Ullal station, in the wee hours of Thursday October 3, (at 4 am), a person barged into the hostel breaking open the main door. One of the inmates said that as the intruder was trying to open another door of the hall where they sleep, one roommate raised an alarm. “We, in fear, called up our warden Shrikanth and the police. Although the police reached immediately, the intruder fled from the scene,” said a student. 

This is the second time in the year that such an incident is occurring. Earlier, a person was found hiding in the toilet of the hostel, recalled another inmate. “Besides, there are instances where the windows are knocked on at night as it is close to the compound wall,” an inmate said.

The hostel does not have security personnel and intruders can easily cross the compound wall as it is quite short. "We spend each night in terror. We cannot sleep in peace," said the inmates.

Hostel warden Shrikanth Gunaga said that after the incident, the University has posted one private security guard and the police have promised to patrol this area twice at night. “This hostel is run in a rented house and there is a plan to construct a new hostel for at least 300 students,” he added.

Although the hostel building looks colourfully painted outside, inside it is in bad state. One of the inmates said that there is not a single chair or table in the hostel. "We have to sit on the floor to write our college assignments," she said.

The women students on Friday October 4 approached health minister U T Khadar, who is also the MLA of Ullal constituency, and expressed their problems. “He directed another official to look into the matter and also assured us of visiting the locality to find solutions,” a woman student told Daijiworld after meeting the minister.

However, after these incidents, most of the women students have quit the hostel out of fear. A few among those who quit said that they will return only if the hostel is shifted to another locality.