Ragging axe on boarders

Eight boarders of Eden Hindu Hostel have been suspended for allegedly ragging a student of Presidency College on Thursday.

The decision to suspend the students — four from Maulana Azad College, three from Goenka College and one from Presidency College — was taken at a three-hour meeting on Friday following a complaint from the alleged victim.

“The eight students cannot stay in the hostel till the end of the autumn vacation. We will review the situation after that,” said Amitava Chatterjee, the acting principal of Presidency College.

It has been left to the individual college authorities to decide whether they would be suspended from the colleges as well.

“I called a meeting of the disciplinary committee of Presidency College and the anti-ragging committee of Eden Hindu Hostel on Friday after we came to know about the incident,” Chatterjee said.

The principal of Maulana Azad College and two representatives of Goenka College attended the meeting.

Dhrubajyoti Chakraborty, a postgraduate student of physics, said eight undergraduate boarders of Ward 4 had verbally abused and then assaulted him.

“The hostel superintendent had informed me about the incident around Thursday midnight. The next day I received a memorandum from 40 students who came out to help the victim,” Chatterjee recalled.

Chakraborty, the eight accused and the “witnesses” were called to depose at the meeting. “The defendants admitted that they had assaulted and abused the victim. But they said the victim, too, had abused them,” said Chatterjee.

The officials at the meeting were not convinced that a single student could abuse eight students. Students of Presidency, Maulana Azad, Goenka and Sanskrit colleges stay at the Eden Hindu Hostel.