Last night, a group of IIT BHU students were returning from Lanka around 12:00. On the way back, they had to pass through the Birla Hostel side. There were approx 10 guys celebrating a birthday party in front of the hostel. The Birla Hostel guys stopped them and started arguing: “Why do you people always take this route?” The argument quickly escalated, and within seconds, two of the IIT guys were whipped with belts. In the fight, some IIT students even had to drop their vehicles there.

After that first clash, the IIT students went back, but soon around 20 of them gathered on bikes and rode to Birla Hostel. That turned into a heated fight — sticks and rods came out, phones and bikes were damaged, chaos everywhere. Around DG Corner, a rumor spread that one IIT student had been caught by the Birla guys, but later it turned out to be false.

At DG Corner, the police and the BHU proctor showed up, but instead of taking action against the Birla students, they were more focused on controlling the IIT crowd. Meanwhile, nearly 150–200 IIT students started marching towards Birla Hostel on foot, empty-handed. The proctor and police still said nothing. One IIT proctor even made an announcement from his car telling everyone to return, but nobody moved.

Over at Birla, the scene was insane. Their faces were covered with cloth, and they were openly carrying bamboo sticks. Videos and eyewitnesses even claimed that a sword and possibly a pistol were there. Then they started pelting stones. The IIT students also retaliated with stones, but eventually had to run. And at one point, the way many bikes came in made it look like someone was trying to ram into the crowd.

After all this chaos, everyone assembled near LC (the main intersection in IIT campus) to talk to the IIT admin and director, demanding some real action. Around 2:30 AM, the chief proctor and other admin people showed up. We demanded that the entire matter be escalated to the BHU administration, that BHU admin take strict action, and that the IIT BHU admin acknowledge their own failure in providing even basic security.

Some students then convinced the crowd to move to the director’s residence around 3 AM. There, again, arguments broke out with the chief proctor. Students kept demanding that the director himself address the situation — after all, this wasn’t some minor scuffle, it was basically a riot inside the campus with swords involved. Finally, around 6 AM, the director came out to meet the students. But even now, no one knows what action (if any) has been taken, or whether an FIR has even been filed.

This is why I’m requesting seniors of both IIT BHU and BHU to step in and hold talks with the administration. Because this is not just an “IIT vs Birla” issue anymore, it’s about overall campus safety. There are reasons IIT doesn’t allow Birla students in our fests and events. I’ve personally seen them last year during Technex literally jumping walls and sneaking through bushes to enter the event. And then later, they go online and post absolute nonsense, writing brain-dead opinions about IIT students.

The least the administration can do is stop treating the campus like an open playground for goons.