Ragged, tech freshers quit en masse

TNN, Sep 14, 2010, 05.58am IST

HALDIA: The entire first-year batch of Haldia Institute of Technology (HIT) walked out of campus on Monday evening, bag and baggage in tow, after relentless ragging and beating by seniors.

The trigger was a night-long thrashing and sporadic clashes throughout Monday morning when the freshers refused to be pressured into buying liquor for seniors.

This isn't the first such incident at HIT, which describes itself as the'largest private education institution in West Bengal'. Exactly a week ago, third-year students Dinesh Singh and Ranjan Roy were allegedly beaten up by their seniors. They lodged a complaint with the police but the institute has taken no action so far. It has not acted on Monday's incident either.

According to the complaint, a group of fourth-year students barged into T4 hostel on Sunday night and beat up first-year boarders. "They used to force us to get liquor for them. This time, we refused. At night, they stormed into our rooms and beat us," said a fresher.

One of the severely injured students, Sukanta Biswas, of the computer science and electronics department, lay bleeding in hostel all night because he dared not step out. He was taken to hospital in the morning. At 8am, the traumatized and injured freshers sat on dharna at the admin-istrative office. The authorities only assu-red that security would be increased but said nothing about identifying and punis-hing the culprits, said the first-year stude-nts who skipped class. Soon, clashes broke out between them and final-year students.

Read more: Ragged, tech freshers quit en masse - The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/Ragged-tech-freshers-quit-en-masse/articleshow/6550640.cms#ixzz0zcxOqw5D