Monday, September 18, 2006 | Lead Story
Mumbai boy ragged in Chiplun suffers swelling to skull and chest, has belt marks on his back, hands and knees
Jigna Vora
Only days after a student in Pune suffered damage to his kidney due to ragging by seniors, another student, a Mumbai boy doing his diploma in computer engineering in Chiplun, 240 km from the city, has become the victim of a brutal assault by college thugs. Rohit Vijay Rane, 17, who moved into his college hostel in Chiplun only a fortnight ago, was on Friday ragged for more than eight hours by five seniors. They first smashed his mobile phone on to the ground and when he threatened to complain to college authorities, locked him up in a room and whipped him repeatedly with a belt, gagging him with a hand to keep his cries from being heard.
Rane returned to his home and parents in Malad on Saturday night and got a medical examination done at Bhagwati Hospital. The hospital's report has revealed he has suffered "assault by a belt and feet during ragging in college. He has belt marks on his hands, back and knees, a swelling on the skull and chest, and his eyes have turned black and red."
Rane went to Kurar police to lodge a complaint on Sunday but was told to complain to Chiplun police since that was where the assault took place. He left with his father to Chiplun late last night.
According to Rane, on Friday at around 8 pm, Sachin Kale, a second-year student, came up to him in the hostel lobby and asked him for his cell phone to make a call. "When I told Sachin the network was down, he got angry and shouted, "If there's no network, what's the use of having a cell?" Then he banged the phone on the floor four times," Rane said.
‘I was locked in a room’
Rane then told Kale he would complain to the rector S S Mane and also to the college principal. "Sachin got even more furious on hearing this and began assaulting me. We were the only ones present in the hostel lobby at the time, and as I yelled from pain, three more seniors came down from upstairs and took me to room number 36 (Sachin's room) on the first floor and locked it from inside. When I told them too that I would complain to the rector, they hit me with a belt for 30 minutes," he noted.
Rane's cries were smothered by the seniors by placing a hand on his mouth. "After a while Sachin dragged me to the ground floor to room number 23, which belongs to another senior, and started beating me there again."
According to Rane, the hostel is just 10 minutes away from the college, and a watchman deployed at its main gate does the rounds of all floors at 11 pm.
"Whenever the watchman made his rounds, other senior students gestured to Sachin and he gagged me with a hand so I could not shout and kept on beating me till 3 am," Rane said.
"When I told the boys that I could die and requested them to stop beating me, Sachin said: 'You want to die? Ok, write a suicide note first'", Rane pointed out. Rane was beaten up again when he refused to write the suicide note. Eventually, he signed the note under duress, he said.
After being beaten for many hours, Rane was locked in a room at 8 am Saturday. At around 11 am, he was dragged by Sachin and his friends to the rector's office, he said. They told rector Mane that Rane had robbed his roommate's mobile, but when Mane asked the roommate, he told him his cell was with him, Rane said.
Mane then called Rane's father, Vijay, who works in a private company in Mumbai. He told him there was a complaint against Rane that he had robbed his roommate's mobile. Rane narrated the whole incident to his father. "My son is in your custody and see that nothing happens to him," Rane's father told the rector after hearing the entire episode.
Mane told his father he would send his son to Mumbai with someone.
When Mumbai Mirror contacted Mane, he agreed there was a fight between the boys but stated that it had nothing to do with ragging. "The incident was due to some internal fight between the boys," Mane said.
Rohit came to Mumbai on Saturday evening and then went to lodge a complaint at Kurar police station.
An officer at the station explained to them that as the incident had taken place at Chiplun, they had to lodge the complaint there. He suggested they go to Bhagwati Hospital for a medical examination and then lodge a complaint at Chiplun.
A frightened Rane told Mumbai Mirror: "I don't want to go back. They will kill me."
1 comment:
Same has to be done with those rascals bcoz they dont know the meaning of ragging. If they are not punished now more cases like this will come up, ragging does not means killing a person but it makes up a bridge between the senior and the junior, it is the best tool for introduction between the senior and the fresher. But this rascals living in the rural areas don't know the exact meaning of it and turns violent. If this is not stopped like the Indu Antao (Sophiya college, Mumbai) murder case the killings will continue on the name of ragging. So they have to be severely punished giving them more severe treatments and beatings they have given to the victim so that they should also understand what happens after receiving such treatment. They were on the verge of taking an innocent life do they think that it was their fathers property.
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