40 students injured as wall of a college collapses in Keonjhar

At least 40 students of Dharadhar Autonomous college here were injured, five of them seriously, when the wall of an under construction classroom in the campus caved in Friday, police said.

Over 100 students were standing in front of the building around 11 am when the mishap occurred, police said. The injured have been admitted to a district hospital and condition of five of them was serious, said Bikramananda Moharana, chief district medical officer, Keonjhar.

Following the incident, irate students went on a rampage in the college campus and allegedly assaulted the supervisor of the construction company Biranchi Swain, police said. The students did not even spare the college staff, who had locked the supervisor inside the staff common room to protect him, as they broke open the door and manhandled them along with Swain, police said.

Police force led by Keonjhar SDPO Maheswar Sethi and local inspector-in-charge Satyajit Das rushed to the spot and controlled the situation.

The students alleged that the wall collapsed due to poor quality of work and inferior material used in the construction.