OU Women Hostellers Bash Intruder, Hand Him Over To Police

“I heard a sound inside the bathroom and grew suspicious it repeated. My friend Arya Anjali, other girls and I came out of their rooms and saw three drunken men who were trying to open the window pane and calling us,” said Mamata.

“I alerted the security guards Moulali, Lakshmi Prasanna and Krishna. All of attacked the trio. While two of them managed to escape, we caught the third one,” Mamata said.

The person tried to attack them with a weapon. Anjali suffered an injury to her right elbow when he pushed her, Mamata said.

They called the Begumpet police who took custody of the man, later identified as Srikanth, 40, a water tanker driver with the Secunderabad Cantonment water board. He had earlier worked in the hostel and was familiar with the layout, police sources said.

“The accused wanted to take obscene videos from the bathroom. We are trying to trace the other two,” said Begumpet sub-inspector P. Pramod Kumar Reddy.

Later in the day, students held a protest and demanded that OU Vice Chancellor Prof. D. Ravinder address their security concerns and other issues.

“The corner from where the culprits entered after jumping the gates is pitch dark with dense bushes. There are no streetlights. We have urged the management to install streetlights and CCTV cameras but in vain,” Anjali said.

Another student, P. Sirija, said, “Anti-social elements gather behind the bushes, take ganja and consume liquor in the nights. Although our security guards have on several occasions forced them out, they keep coming back. We all are in a state of panic. The VC should ensure that we stay protected.”

OU Registrar Dr P. Laxminarayana met the students, numbering around 250, and assured them that the university would install CCTV cameras and streetlights and deploy more security guards.

North zone DCP Rohini Priyadarshni inspected the hostel, spoke to the students and posted a picket at the hostel gate.