Patna:

A day after a 22-year-old student was beaten to death by masked men on the campus of a college in Patna, police have arrested the main accused and found that an altercation over a dandiya night last year led to the attack that claimed the youngster’s life.

Harsh Raj, a third-year student of Vocational English at BN College, was at Sultanganj Law College yesterday to take an exam when masked men armed with sticks attacked him. The blows left him critically injured. Police reached the spot and rushed him to a hospital, where he died during treatment.

“A heinous crime took place on the law college campus yesterday. Some anti-social elements beat up a student, Harsh Raj, so badly that he died later. We formed a Special Investigation Team. We have now arrested the main accused, who planned the attack. His name is Chandan Yadav, a final-year student of Patna college. He has admitted to the crime and we are working to catch the other accused,” City SP (East) Bharat Soni told the media.

Police said the attack was triggered by an altercation at a dandiya event during Dussehra last year. “There was a fight between two groups and the tension persisted. This led to the planning of this attack. This is a clear case under Section 302 (murder),” the senior police officer said.

The officer said the Dussehra night altercation was followed by several heated exchanges. The accused has said “his ego was hurt”, Mr Soni said.

Chilling visuals from the campus show the attackers repeatedly hit the victim with sticks. A police case has been registered and police are examining CCTV footage from the campus to identify the accused.

Bihar minister Ashok Choudhary has posted a photo of himself and Harsh and said no amount of criticism of the attack is enough. “I am in touch with the authorities regarding this incident. Those guilty will be arrested soon,” the JDU leader said, adding that the government is with the family in this crisis.

The Opposition has slammed the Nitish Kumar-led BJP-JDU government over the incident. “This is very unfortunate. The law and order situation is worsening by the day ever since the NDA government was formed. They have no control on the administration. The guilty must be arrested at the earliest and face strict punishment,” Leader of the Opposition, RJD’s Tejashwi Yadav said.

Targeting the BJP, he said, “If this had happened in our term, they would have hit the streets and shouted ‘jungleraj’. Where are they now? What are they doing?”