54 students of IT university in Andhra Pradesh suspended for mass ragging
54 students were suspended after a probe confirmed mass ragging on August 29 at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies at Nuzvid in Andhra Pradesh
More than 50 students of a government university in Andhra Pradesh were suspended on charges of ragging juniors, the biggest such crackdown in the state, officials said on Tuesday.
The 54 students were suspended on Monday after a probe confirmed the mass ragging on August 29 at the Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies at Nuzvid in Krishna district.
India enacted stringent anti-ragging laws in 2009 and the government set up helplines for lodging complaints. But physical abuse of junior students continue across campuses with a majority of the victims remaining silent.
Most of the junior students at Nuzvid had to be hospitalised after they were subjected to physical “punishment” by the seniors, a probe by the university’s disciplinary committee found.
The suspended students are in their third and fourth years of their software engineering courses at the university, also known as the International Institute of Information Technology.
The management said the action was initiated after the probe panel in its report recommended suspension of the students.
University registrar V Venkata Das said six students have been barred from attending classes for one year. They will not be allowed to take the annual exams.
Nine other students were suspended from the college for one year but will be allowed to take the annual exams. Another 13 students have been placed under suspension till November. The remaining 24 students have been thrown out of the campus.
The probe found that the seniors confined as many as 12 juniors to a room in the hostel and subjected them to variety of physical punishments in the name of ragging.
The seniors also punished the juniors for complaining against them to the college administrative authorities.
A survey by the Coalition to Uproot Ragging from Education (CURE), a non-profit organisation, found that between 2007-13, there were 717 cases of ragging leading to 71 deaths, 30 attempted suicides, 199 cases of injuries and 128 cases involving sexual abuse. 81 of the injured were permanently disabled.
