Engineering student alleges ragging

The ugly head of ragging reared its head once again when a first-year engineering student complained that his seniors forcibly cut his hair. Kapil Datta reports

The ugly head of ragging reared its head once again when a first-year engineering student complained that his seniors forcibly cut his hair.

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Arjun Singh, a student of Noida Institute of Engineering & Technology, has lodged an FIR at the Kasna police station, alleging that his senior Sumit Arora, along with two others, tried to rag him at the canteen a week ago. When Singh refused to entertain their request, they forcibly cut his hair. He then informed the college management. Fed up with no action, Singh filed a police complaint on Saturday. He approached the deputy superintendent of police.

"I have ordered filing of an FIR against the accused," said Rahul Kumar, deputy superintendent of police.

The college authorities, however, denied the allegation of not taking any action. "On getting a complaint from the student last week, we had formed an inquiry committee to investigate the matter. Our initial investigations have revealed that the incident did not take place at the college campus. However, the inquiry committee is yet to submit the report," said a college official.

"We will inquire into the recent NIET ragging matter. Past experiences have showed that in the event of ragging, colleges disown it, claiming that the incident occurred outside the campus. Colleges have been directed to provide hostel accommodation to all outstation students. If they are unable to provide hostel, then their anti-ragging squads are expected to keep a tab on students residing outside the campus and prevent ragging," said Pushyapati Saxena, registrar of Mahamaya Technical University.

In the past two years, several cases of ragging have been reported from various colleges.

However, only less than one percent of the cases are being reported, as freshers are too scared to report the matter.