In what could lead to a huge controversy, a group of MITians, who’re seeking to rent out a flat, alleged tacit discrimination by landlords in Manipal against students of Manipal Institute of Technology.
“This attitude of landlords sucks. As soon as they learn we are from MIT, they are like ‘you are from MITaaaaa?’ with disdain. Although they don’t admit it openly, they give some lame excuse to deny us the flats,” complained Simran Hashmi, one of the students.
“We approached Frugal Ecstasy, 17th Heaven, Crass Cottage etc… The story is the same everywhere. One landlord couldn’t find any proper excuse and asked for a deposit of 3 lakh to keep us away,” said another student Yo Mahesh Bhat.
This ad in a Facebook community was the last straw that broke the peace between MITians and Landlords of Manipal.Akash Pai, a final year student, blamed University officials for this. He said: “When our own university officials discriminate against us, we can’t really blame the landlords. When someone from some other MU college stole equipment inside university building, they banned us from entering CCD in Health Sciences Library. And recently, they banned flip-flops inside the Manipal.edu building… WTF!! flip-flops are part and parcel an MITian’s ethnic wear.” He added,”Because of this, even students from other MU institutions are openly displaying ads that non-MITians are preferred when looking for flatmates.”
But owners are justifying their stance. One of them said,”MITians are generally noisy and they have too many visitors which disturbs others… I feel societies should be exclusively earmarked for them.”
We hear that MITians are planning a peaceful protest against landlords and give a memorandum to the University as well.
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