Kachroo case: Convicts allowed to rejoin college
Four medical college students, who were convicted for ragging to death their 19-year-old junior Aman Kachroo, would now return to the college as Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) on Saturday allowed them to complete their studies.
Four medical college students, who were convicted for ragging to death their 19-year-old junior Aman Kachroo, would now return to the college as Himachal Pradesh University (HPU) on Saturday allowed them to complete their studies.
“The HPU executive council (EC) meeting, chaired by vice-chancellor ADN Bajpai, has allowed the convicts to continue with their MBBS degree,” said an HPU spokesman, adding that the permission was given on the convicts' request.
Gurgaon resident Aman Satya Kachroo, a first-year MBBS student at Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College (RPGMC), Tanda, was ragged to death by four senior students on March 8, 2009.
On November 11, 2010, a court sentenced Ajay Verma, Navin Verma, Abhinav Verma and Mukul Sharma to four-year rigorous imprisonment. Three convicts were third-year MBBS students, while Ajay was an intern at the time of the incident.
They were earlier held guilty of culpable homicide not amounting to murder, house-trespass, assault or wrongful restraint.
They were released from jail in August last year seven months before the completion of their term on the ground of good conduct.
The conviction of the four was upheld by the Himachal Pradesh high court in April this year. They had approached HPU this year to seek readmission in the medical college to complete their degree.
Does any varsity allows student to come back after four years
Reacting to the HPU's decision to readmit the students, Aman's father Rajender Kachroo said, “He has nothing much to say on this issue. Still I want to ask a question to the public and to the government. Does any university in the world allow a student to come back after four years?”
“If a student is short of attendance he is thrown out, but when the people and the government do not want to improve the system, what could a person like me do,” he said, adding that it was not his personal issue.
Kachroo said he had already maintained that it was the issue between the convicted and the state and if the state was not strong enough what could be done.
Kachroo, who is currently monitoring the National Ragging Prevention Programme on behalf of the University Grants Commission (UGC), said the decision was going to be a bad example and setback to the anti-ragging campaign.
“The decision has the large dimension in the context of the campaign,” said Kachroo.
