HRD MINISTER, STUDENTS KILLED IN SHOOTOUT AT IIT BOMBAY
Mumbai, 25th June, 2008
In a grim reminder of the shootout at Virginia Tech in USA last year, an undergraduate student at IIT Bombay opened fire at the campus killing the Central Human Resource Development Minister, Mr. Arjun Singh and 28 others, mostly students, yesterday morning.
According to details available, the incident occured at the Convocation Hall of IIT Powai where a function was organised with Mr. Arjun Singh as its Chief Guest. The shooter, Alok Sharma, a third year Mechanical Engineering student made his motive clear before going on the rampage. In a dramatic turn of events, Alok ran upto the stage where Mr. Singh was addressing the crowd, snatched the microphone from him and gave a short but firebrand speech before opening fire at the Minister with his .7mm pistol killing him on the spot. He later turned to a group of around 30 students present on the dias and isdiscrimantely opened fire killing 25 of them before he was shot by one of the Security guards ending the bloodbath. In the entire chaos, one Security Guard was also killed.
Before going on the rampage, Alok in his confessional speech asked the crowd, "How can you justify a process in which most of the students have to slog for more than two years and appear for one of the most difficult examinations in the World in order to secure a seat in this prestigious institution while some other students get to walk in bypassing the whole mental torture just because they have a paper declaring that their forefathers belonged to a certain caste called OBC?" As the stunned crowd sat in silence, he continued, "And the person responsible for this unjust process is here amidst us and I would like to give him what he deserves..." before shooting 3 bullets into his forehead at point blank range leaving him in a pool of blood.
Meanwhile, initial reports suggest that all the other victims were freshman students belonging to the OBC category who were called up on the dias by the Minister to allot them their admissions under the newly implemented OBC quota. This incident has sent shockwaves across the nation and fuelled large scale protests asking the Government to do a serious rethink about its Caste-based reservation policies and demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister and dissolution of the Parliament. The Prime Minister has said that it is too early to comment on the whole issue and announced a compensation of Rs 5 Lakh each for the kins of the dead students.
According to details available, the incident occured at the Convocation Hall of IIT Powai where a function was organised with Mr. Arjun Singh as its Chief Guest. The shooter, Alok Sharma, a third year Mechanical Engineering student made his motive clear before going on the rampage. In a dramatic turn of events, Alok ran upto the stage where Mr. Singh was addressing the crowd, snatched the microphone from him and gave a short but firebrand speech before opening fire at the Minister with his .7mm pistol killing him on the spot. He later turned to a group of around 30 students present on the dias and isdiscrimantely opened fire killing 25 of them before he was shot by one of the Security guards ending the bloodbath. In the entire chaos, one Security Guard was also killed.
Before going on the rampage, Alok in his confessional speech asked the crowd, "How can you justify a process in which most of the students have to slog for more than two years and appear for one of the most difficult examinations in the World in order to secure a seat in this prestigious institution while some other students get to walk in bypassing the whole mental torture just because they have a paper declaring that their forefathers belonged to a certain caste called OBC?" As the stunned crowd sat in silence, he continued, "And the person responsible for this unjust process is here amidst us and I would like to give him what he deserves..." before shooting 3 bullets into his forehead at point blank range leaving him in a pool of blood.
Meanwhile, initial reports suggest that all the other victims were freshman students belonging to the OBC category who were called up on the dias by the Minister to allot them their admissions under the newly implemented OBC quota. This incident has sent shockwaves across the nation and fuelled large scale protests asking the Government to do a serious rethink about its Caste-based reservation policies and demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister and dissolution of the Parliament. The Prime Minister has said that it is too early to comment on the whole issue and announced a compensation of Rs 5 Lakh each for the kins of the dead students.
i think wat he did was ryt. the minister destroyed lives of a thousands of young n capable students of india givin way to many other ppl who may be werent even interested in getin in iitb.its also possible coz ppl r attracted to dis insti coz u get a gud job and dat too a well paid one
ReplyDelete"money makes the world go round"..
dere shudn be any reservation for d OBC quota n admissions shud be given according to d credit of d students
Yes.. sumthing like this should happen... otherwise India's going to the dogs
ReplyDeletehi there
ReplyDeletecool blog!!!
hpe it comes true some day.
ReplyDeleteshoot out at IIT Powai???.... well we din knw that yaar.. u guys knw earlier than us....
ReplyDeletehey exciting preview into something dats inevitable one day. our country's education n admission system not gonna improve without drastic steps dat shake up our biased,chair-misusing so called 'politicians'.
ReplyDeleteI don't think such an incident will make the government rethink its policy. It might shock the nation, and people will raise their voices for a while, but like most issues in our country, they will die a silent death.
ReplyDeleteHow many people today think about the 1993 bomb blasts except the people who were directly affected by it? Hell not many people I know give a rat's ass about the 7/11 bomb blasts.
And people from reserved categories will continue to abuse their status.