I think since the thread started, obviously it has generated a lot of interest. But I think this reaction to a barely working hard disk not returned by an engg. college student is somewhat overboard. I mean, bachhe ki jaan loge kya?
I have been lucky to have attended two similar prestigious educational institutions and putting myself in his shoes, I can imagine that something like this can happen. As somebody else pointed out lots of students borrow lots of stuff from others and then forget about it, hostel rooms are unclean, stuff gets lost all the time. This can happen, has happend to me also. Somebody's freshly ironed clothes disappeared from my hostel room once, and I had no clue how. He hounded me for new clothes but for me the choice was between paying the mess bill or buying him a new set of clothes. Eventually he got back to me by making himself an owner of my Scientific calculator. We left it at that I guess. While now us gentle citizens would look at this behaviour and call it irresponsible, but then here I am now - I dont break laws, dont bribe public officials, pay my taxes, etc and generally lead an honorable life.
Anyways, point of the monologue is that this behaviour on part of our subject is not an indicator of his character (in as much as a small sample is not stastically significant) and we should not malign him on a very public board. These things will stay on in the google caches for very long and indeed could be very detrimental to said person, at a cost much higher than that of the barely working disk.
I dont think that this is right. I would actually request the mods to close this thread.