The second stabbing at a Boston-area college in as many days sent a Boston College senior to the hospital yesterday with injuries described as not life-threatening, as four men were arrested by police and a fifth fled, according to a school spokesman.

The victim, Jeremiah Hegarty, was stabbed in the abdomen shortly after midnight outside a cluster of apartment-style dormitories.

He was reported in good condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center last night after undergoing surgery, said Jack Dunn, the BC spokesman.

Boston College police arrested and charged four men in connection with the stabbing.

The suspects have no connection to the college or Hegarty, Dunn said. One is charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon for allegedly kicking Hegarty, and the other three for being accessories to the assault, which occurred be tween midnight and 2 a.m. in Lower Campus in Brighton.

A fifth man, the alleged stabber, fled afterward and State and Boston police were searching for him, Dunn said.

The assault came a day after the fatal stabbing of 18-year-old Elhaji Malick Ndiaye at Regis College in Weston, and raised further questions about how universities can better exclude from their grounds people who pose a threat to students.

Ndiaye was stabbed in a parking lot at the college at 4:30 a.m. Friday. Neither Ndiaye nor a second stabbing victim, a 22-year-old friend of his who survived, were students at Regis.

Several students on the Boston College campus yesterday afternoon said they heard the perpetrators in yesterday’s stabbing were students from another college, but Dunn said that was likely not true.

“That may’ve been the guise that they used to get in, but the indication is they aren’t college students,’’ he said.

Dunn said Boston College students had asked the five men to leave and they refused before the attack occurred.

Details of a possible motive were not available. Drugs and alcohol were not a factor and the investigation is ongoing, Dunn said.

Hegarty is a student at BC’s Carroll School of Management, Dunn said. A posting on the college website said he is from Osterville.

“Boston College is an exceptionally safe campus, and we view this as an anomalous issue,’’ Dunn said.

Late afternoon yesterday, after Boston College’s football team lost to Virginia Tech 19-0, fans and students of Boston College poured from Alumni Stadium, tossing footballs, commiserating about the shutout defeat, and propping up tables and grills for postgame tailgating.

Most interviewed were unaware of the violence that had taken place just a few feet away, a few hours earlier.

Mario, a student who lives in a dorm and asked that his last name not be used, said he was surprised to hear about the violence.

“I feel safe here. A lot of people feel safe here,’’ the accounting major said. “This sort of thing is not very common at all.’’

“They do a good job,’’ he said of the campus security team. “I’m not sure how they could have stopped it.’’

Mario’s friend, Kaitlyn Guerrier, a Suffolk University sophomore was equally surprised.

“I wouldn’t expect people who don’t belong here to be here,’’ she said.

Anyone with information is urged to call Boston Police at 617-343-4470 or 800-494-TIPS, or by texting ‘TIP’ to 27463.

Christopher J. Girard can be reached at chrisjgirard@gmail.com.

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