With the police gunning down five suspects belonging to Bihar and Uttar Pradesh in connection with the two bank heists in Chennai, the Tamil Nadu government has started enumeration of students from other states.
Circulars have been sent to all higher education institutions to collect details, including contact information, of all students who do not belong to Tamil Nadu.
Nisar Ahmed, additional secretary to public (law and order) department, in a letter to the higher education secretary, recalled the law and order meeting chaired by chief secretary Debendranath Sarangi in which they discussed the robbery at the Bank of Baroda branch at Perungudi.
“It was informed that the perpetrators of this robbery were conversing in Hindi and that they could be migrant labourers or students from other states,” Ahmed said.
Sarangi had informed the meeting that the labour and employment department had a registered database on migrant labourers that could be shared with the police.
It was suggested at the meeting that college authorities should be asked to furnish details of students, especially those residing outside the hostels.
Prof G. Thiruvasagam, vice-chancellor, University of Madras, said the higher education department has sent the public department’s letter asking it to collect details and forward it to the government.
“We have despatched the circular to all colleges affiliated to us, seeking details of all students from other states,” Prof Thiruvasagam, said.
Cops: Data comes in handy during difficult situations
The circular from the higher education department to universities seeking details of non-Tamil students staying outside the college hostels is certainly going to stir rights activists.
But the January 23 daylight robbery at gunpoint at a bank on old Mahabalipuram road, in Perungudi, and four weeks later at another bank in Madipakkam by suspected migrant labourers, seems to have triggered panic among the powers that be following which the decision to enumerate migrant workers and migrant students was taken.
The police who killed the suspected robbers, four Biharis and a Bengali, in an encounter on February 23, seized seven guns from their hideout.
In the recent kidnap of a student at M.K.B. nagar and the arrest of three students, five country-made guns were recovered.
The seizure of firearms in the two incidents has left the police worried.
Senior officials had been talking about the need for keeping a tab on workers who had arrived in large numbers and are employed in the construction industry in and around Chennai.
“Unlike local residents, who can be located and traced due to their addresses and other references, it is difficult for us to track down migrant workers or students about whom the government may not have data. An easily available data may help us during difficult situations,” noted a senior IPS official.
Another senior law and order official said the police are not interested in data about regular students. “We only want details about anti-social elements who come from other states in the guise of workers and students,” he said.