7 Sanawar students sent home for ragging

2 May 2009, 0206 hrs IST, Jagdish Bhatt, TNN

SHIMLA: From college campuses, ragging appears to be trickling down to high schools now. Sanawar-based Lawrence School sent home seven Class XII

students who were suspected to have been ragging juniors in the residential public school.

Headmaster Praveen Vashisht did not call it `rustication' but made it clear that the students, whom he charged with manhandling some juniors, would not be allowed back. ``I will not tolerate violence by students
, or for that matter, teachers, in any form as long as I am the headmaster,'' Vashisht told TOI on Friday.

He had, moments earlier, turned down the request of parents of the affected children to allow them back, saying the matter would be decided by the school board.

Vashisht refused to elaborate on the form of violence meted out to the juniors and would not refer to the incident as ragging but sources said the seven students had, indeed, ragged some boys of Class XI on Monday night. The seven students were from families in Delhi, Chandigarh and Punjab, they said.

When the matter reached the headmaster, he set up a two-member committee of senior staff to probe the incident and report within 24 hours. The issue was later referred to a three-member disciplinary committee, which decided that such incidents should not be tolerated in the school in view of the increasing cases of violent ragging, like the one in Himachal's Tanda medical college which left fresher Amann Kachroo dead. Once the decision was made, all seven students were escorted home by teachers on Wednesday night.