No boundary wall separating the NIT campus and the dam death trap at Asangi, no word of caution from their hostel wardens or mentors and no warning sign by the Kharkai together snuffed out three young ' and promising ' lives in Adityapur on Wednesday.
The charges were levelled against the NIT management on Thursday by parents and relatives of Prasun Anand, Pawne Aditya Vardhan and Sudhir Kumar, the final-year trio who drowned in the river during an impromptu trip.
Surendra Prasad, the father of 21-year-old Sudhir and an employee of Bokaro Steel Limited, squarely blamed the cradle for his personal tragedy, emphasising that the incident took place while classes were on at the institute.
NIT spokesperson Malay Neeraj too observed that the eight students had planned their trip during class hours and the matter would have to be probed.
Director-in-charge S.B.L. Saxena said the students had been indisciplined. "One cannot expect final-year students, who have spent four years on campus (and hence know the rules), to bunk classes and venture out. They were perhaps excited about their plum placements, which sadly led to such a misadventure," he said.
But bereaved Prasad stood his ground. "My son was never an adventure junkie. During his four-year stay at NIT, he never violated the code of conduct. Had the authorities strictly asked the students not to go near the check dam, they wouldn't have. Why would my son want to risk his life for nothing? He had a good job at hand and he was never disobedient," the 52-year-old rued.
Prasad said he came to know of the incident from his daughter, Rajani Kumari, who had passed out from the same institute in 2009 and is currently working in Delhi with Tata Power.
"My daughter was informed by one of the students who was her junior. She told me that there should be a boundary wall between the hostel premises and the check dam. The institute should have had a system in place to stop such incidents," he said.
On Sunday, Sudhir was in Bokaro to meet his relatives and promised to see them during Holi. He reached home early, but in a body bag.
Aditya's uncle P.G.S. Rao, who is an officer in the Union ministry of finance in Delhi, said he came to know of the tragedy when his elder brother T. Satyanarayan (father of Aditya) called him on Wednesday evening.
He said Aditya's father, a diabetic, was so shocked that he had to seek medical attention at their native Vijayawada within hours of the 22-year-old's death.
"I am new to this place (Adityapur), but what I have gathered from the friends of Aditya is that the NIT management has been callous towards student safety. In no elite institution of the country can a student go outside the campus during classes. It was the sole reason behind the tragedy. Why is there no mechanism in place at NIT to prevent students from bunking classes?" he said.
He too added that the lack of a boundary wall around the hostel was the reason for students making trips outside campus even at night. "At other institutions, hostel wardens are held accountable in case of any such mishap. Let us see what the NIT management will do," he said.
According to Rao, the cradle management should have at least erected danger signboards near the check dam to warn students that the waters were deep and the current too strong for a swim.
Aditya was the eldest among two siblings. His brother is pursuing BTech at Siddhant College of Engineering in Vijayawada.
Sixty-five-year-old Narayan Jha, a retired employee of Bokaro Steel Limited and father of Prasun Anand, was too shocked to react. The 22-year-old was his only son. "My daughters are all married and I hoped to live with my son and his family. But destiny had something else in store for him," he said.
The grief-stricken father said Prasun was supposed to go home (in Bokaro) in the last week of January, as his thread ceremony was scheduled on February 3. "I still doubt the fact that Prasun went to take bath in a river. He was always afraid of water and did not go to the riverbank during Chhath. He did not know how to swim," Jha broke down.
Two days ago, Prasun, the "darling" of his family, had called two of his sisters and promised them expensive Rakhi gifts because he had bagged a plum job.
A month earlier when he had come to Bokaro, he had called upon friend Abhishek and told him about his dream to help the needy after he started working. "He had gifted me a wallet, which he had bought in Jamshedpur. How will his family survive without him? He was a good student and also kind at heart," Abhishek said.
Desperately trying to come to terms with his irreparable loss, the sexagenarian refused to believe that his son was indisciplined. "I would like to ask the NIT management how many times it had warned the students of dangers such as the one that cost the lives of my son and his friends?"
With inputs from Shashank Shekhar in Bokaro
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