[Telegraph] College axe on ragging 6

Link to report

OUR BUREAU

Calcutta/Suri, April 18: The six students accused of ragging in a Suri polytechnic will be suspended.

Ramakrishna Shilpa Vidyapith, which had earlier refused to act before its internal probe team filed a report, was asked to get cracking by the government yesterday.

The day before, the Supreme Court had put the onus of action against ragging culprits on the colleges. Otherwise, it said, their funds tap could be turned off.

Sarojit Biswas, a first-year civil engineering student, had climbed down a drainpipe and fled hostel last Friday to escape the torture of his seniors.

The decision to suspend the six, named in an FIR filed by Sarojit’s brother, was taken after technical education director Parijat De and technical education department secretary S.C. Tewari met the officer-in-charge of the college this morning.

“We have asked Mohammed Ali Haider (the officer in charge) to collect a copy of the FIR from police and act accordingly. Those named in the FIR will be suspended for a year,” De said.

“They would be expelled if criminal charges are framed against them.”

The seniors had allegedly forced Sarojit to inhale smoke, scalded him with cigarette butts and banged his head against a wall.

Yesterday, De asked the college to lodge an FIR against the six, as the Supreme Court had wanted institutions to do. But it did not because Sarojit’s family had already lodged one.

“We are adhering to the Supreme Court order by acting against the boys on the basis of the FIR,” De said today.

Sarojit quit college because of the torture. His cousin, an electrical student at the same college, quit out of fear.

“We are happy. The culprits should get exemplary punishment,” Sarojit’s brother Hiranmoy said from their home in North 24-Parganas.