Pandya said the principal of the college was summoned here on Tuesday and asked to reopen the hostel to enable students to prepare for semester examiations.

``The government has also initiated efforts to bring together the two warring groups of students and conduct the examiations in peaceful atmosphere,'' he said.

The minister said the students had started returning to Morbi, after he assured them that they would be provided adequate security arrangements at the Morbi engineering college and hostel. He said a miscreant from Saurahstra had been arrested in connection with the Saturday violence. "The police will hound out criminals, if any, from hostels in any parts of the State", Pandya asserted.

In Morbi, the authorities being kept on tenterhooks by repeated calls from Sachivalaya, an evasive calm prevailed on the campus.

The director of technical education, Prof K.J. Parmar, said that district superintendent of police (DSP) Satish Sharma was requested on Tuesday to provide police protection at the college and in the campus.

Sources in the Sachivalaya said that Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya had personally asked Rajkot (rural) DSP to provide police protection. He said hostels for students of sixth and eighth semester students, which were closed following trouble, would be re-opened on April 22.

The college principal described the situation as ``under control''. ``However, to mitigate feeling of fear, we would like police protection for a few days,'' he said.

Meanwhile, students from north Gujarat, who had sat on a dharna outside the office of Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, on Tuesday registered a fresh complaint with Sharma alleging that owing to the clout of some local Patels several incidents have been hushed up in the past few months. They alleged that they were assaulted some six months back but the matter was never reported to law-enforcing agencies. The students returned to Morbi with police protection, packed their luggage, and left for home as the hostels have been closed.

The students said that although they had full confidence in the college authorities they failed to understand why anti-social elements were not being discouraged.

They said that the authorities had recently seized liquor from one of the accused in the assault case, a student called Prakash Patel aka PC Don, no action was taken against him. They alleged that he has been in the college for seven years and frequents the hostels even though he isn't an inmate.

The students alleged that the Patel Social Group, involved in the Saturday fracas, enjoyed the patronage of som local heavy-weights. They also alleged that the police had been acting in a partisan manner: after the Saturday incident they were made to wait in the police station from 5 p.m. to 4 a.m. before the complaint was registered.

According to another college administrator, following the Saturday incident students of first and the fourth semester have been asked to come back on April 28, and those from sixth and eighth semesters on May 10. The college has eight hostels in which 1,100 students live.

Some students have asked the police to provide bandobast at the college so that they could stay in their hostels and prepare for examinations, which begin on May 17.