5 Kerala nursing students held for brutal ragging
Five students at Kottayam's Government Nursing College were arrested for allegedly assaulting and extorting first-year students; they face severe charges.
Five students have been arrested for allegedly assaulting and ragging a group of first-year students and extorting money from them at the Government Nursing College in Kottayam district of Kerala, police said on Wednesday. The college administration has suspended the accused students.
A case has been registered against the accused, identified as Rahul Raj KP (22), Rijiljith C (21) and Vivek NV (21) — all third-year general nursing batch students — and second-year students Samuel Johnson (20) and Jeeva NS (19), police said, adding the victims are six first-year students.
“According to the complaints filed by the first-year students, they were stripped naked by the accused in their hostel rooms and subjected to extreme brutality,” a senior police officer said, requesting anonymity. “They alleged that they were forced to stand naked and subjected to severe physical abuse using dumbbells, including tying them to their private parts.”
The complainants also alleged that the seniors used compasses and other similar objects to inflict injuries, followed by the application of lotion on the wounds to further aggravate the pain, the officer added.
The complaint also stated that senior students regularly extorted money from them to buy alcohol and frequently assaulted them, police added.
College authorities said the victim students had not reported their ordeal to the hostel officials, teachers or their parents in the last three months despite regular anti-ragging awareness being provided on the campus.
The college principal confirmed that the five accused students have been suspended pending inquiry and that the preliminary reports on the alleged ragging will be sent to the state medical education department.
“It was the parent of one of the students who dialled the class teacher and reported the incident of ragging. The class teacher then spoke to the victims, who confirmed it. We held a meeting with the victims, hostel officials and faculty. After conducting an internal preliminary inquiry and finding proof of ragging, the college suspended the five accused students,” Lini Joseph, principal-in-charge of the college, told reporters. “We also forwarded the students’ complaint to the Gandhinagar SHO and the office of Kottayam superintendent of police.”
The accused have been booked under sections 118 (voluntarily causing hurt), 308 (extortion) and 351 (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) and relevant provisions of the Prohibition of Ragging Act, 2011, police said.
On Wednesday, the accused were produced before a court, which sent them to a 14-day judicial custody, the officer cited above said.