Fed up of what they call a ``continuing process of victimisation and harassment'', the reserved category students have filed a complaint at the local police station. They allege that they were dragged out of their rooms and beaten up, even as the hostel warden looked on. When asked for comment, the warden said ``The matter was being looked into''.

The trouble started when Sudhir Kumar, who got admission through quota, was leaving the TV room on Monday night. He says he was pushed around by another student, Kapil Jain. Kumar said, ``I immediately went to the warden, who told me to go to my room and not stir out. I was sitting there with two others, when a mob of around 60 general category students gathered outside. They dragged me to the terrace and beat meup.''

There are around 350 students in this hostel, 60 of whom are from the reserved category. According to the latter, general category students launched a virtual witch-hunt for them, checking each room.

Hostel room doors were allegedly broken, belongings were thrown around and destroyed, as students went on a rampage. Kumar said, ``One of the general category students announced through the public address system that all general category students should come out of their rooms and beat the reserved category students.''

The clash soon spread to the adjacent junior resident doctors' hostel. Students went there allegedly looking for Dr Balvinder Singh Bhatti, also from the reserved category. Bhatti said, ``The mob came shouting my name. I had already heard about the trouble and rushed up to the terrace, where I hid in fear the entire night. They forcibly entered my room, broke my things and threw my cycle down from the fifth floor. Most of them were carrying rods, sticks and cricket bats.''

When ChiefMedical Officer Sanjay Nigam, who also lives in the JRD hostel, heard about the problem he went to the boy's hostel with two others. ``We went to Sudhir's room and saw 15-20 boys sitting there and crying. They had all been beaten badly. The PA system announcement was made in front of us. When we spoke to the warden he tried to fool us by saying that he was sorting out the matter, and asked us to leave.''

Nigam wasn't spared either. As he left the boy's hostel he ran into Dr Vikas Saldanah, who allegedly led the mob to Sudhir's room. ``Saldanah was my batch-mate. He saw me and asked what I was doing there. When I told him he called me a `schedu' and started hitting me.'' Nigam has bruises all over his body and a laceration above his left eye. Saldanah refused to comment.

Dr Singh says he was also targeted. He was on duty in the casualty ward when students came looking for him. They allegedly caught him by his turban, opened it, and then dragged him by the hair to the hostel.

While this is not the firsttime that caste-related problems have cropped up at the hostel, quota students say it has never been so bad before. ``There is always some tension. Even in the mess there is one table for us and they don't allow us to sit anywhere else. Usually the warden has been able to control the small problems. But this got out of hand,'' said one student.

The students in the boy's hostel say that they are defenceless against such attacks. ``What is to prevent such an incident in the future? If these boys are not punished -- and we have named them in the complaint -- then what is to stop this from happening again?'' asked one student.

Others are distressed because they were attacked by batch-mates, whom they earlier thought were friends. ``We hear of these things happening in Bihar and UP, not in a cosmopolitan city like Delhi. The bruises will heal, but we have been humiliated, and it is not easy to forget that.''