The Hindu : Andhra Pradesh / Hyderabad News : Rival gangs play game of one-upmanship

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Sunday, Apr 22, 2007
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Andhra Pradesh

Andhra Pradesh - Hyderabad

Rival gangs play game of one-upmanship

Staff Reporter

Both groups in Deccan Engineering College moved with weapons, enjoyed support of anti-social elements

VITAL LEADS: The Clues team collecting evidence from the shooting site at Deccan Engineering College in the city on Saturday. -- PHOTO: K. RAMESH BABU

HYDERABAD: A group of students ride into the college on motorcycles. And the rival group leader breezes in an open-top jeep. One gang calls itself the Dominators and the other, the Destroyers.

The Dominators and the Destroyers obviously vie with each other to be the focal point of every activity on the campus and fight for one-upmanship.

Police believe that the Saturday shooting incident in Deccan Engineering College that stunned parents, academics and students alike, is the ugly outcome of a war between two gangs in the making.

Western influence

"We're yet to ascertain who is at fault but it seems the students are influenced by some western culture of sorts," Additional Commissioner of Police N.V. Surendra Babu told reporters here.

Both the groups accuse each other of high-handed behaviour, moving with weapons and enjoying support of anti-social elements.

So hell-bent were they to gain upper hand that the Dominators started hosting a website on Internet to improve their image.

They reportedly issued newsletters on this site praising their activities and condemning those of their rivals.

Group clashes

The groups of Umeedullah Khan, who allegedly made an attempt on the life of his senior Mukarram Ali Siddiqui, clashed a couple of times earlier on the campus.

In February last, Khan and his friends approached Habeebnagar police saying Siddiqui and his friends ragged and assaulted them.

A criminal case invoking provisions of Anti-Ragging Act was registered against them. While one was arrested, another surrendered before court and six others obtained anticipatory bails in that case.

Mr. Babu made it clear that the shooting incident was neither a fallout of the ragging case nor can be compared to gruesome shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech in Blacksburg of America.

Siddiqui's classmates charge that they were implicated in a false case and in fact it was Khan who used to rag and dominate other students by claiming links with powerful people.

To be expelled

The Management of Deccan College of Engineering and Technology has decided to expel the students involved in the shooting incident on the campus.

Condemning the shocking incident on the college campus, the management said that they were cooperating with the police in the investigation of the case wherein one student opened fire on another student causing injuries.

The College Principal Md.Abdul Aleem Siddiqui in a release said that Saturday's shooting incident was not related any ragging episode but stemmed from personal rivalry between the two students that had come to the notice of the management in the recent past.

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