Staff, police try to hush up ragging at Osmania University

It has come to light that Osmania University officials and the police have tried their best to hush up an incident of ragging at the Public Administration department in the Arts College.

In the first ragging incident reported at the Arts College in 25 years, juniors had alleged that the seniors had been ragging them for several days. They informed the officials that they had kept quite keeping in mind the reputation of the university, but the seniors were taking advantage of this and were behaving indecently, especially with the girl students.

The juniors had also filed a complaint at the OU police station.University officials, however, took all measures to ensure that the students withdrew their complaints against seniors.

A junior, Ms K. Karuna, who had lodged the complaint with the officials, said that the seniors had made casteist remarks against SC, ST students by asking them to introduce themselves in English, Telugu.
She informed the officials that the seniors had also made indecent comments about the physical features of girl students and had asked the SC, ST boys to stand on one leg for an hour.

Instead of taking action, the officials conducted a meeting between the seniors and juniors on Thursday and tried to resolve the issue.

They said that cases should not be lodged keeping in view the future of the students and warned the seniors of severe actions if they resorted to ragging in future.

"We have convened a meeting between seniors and juniors to resolve the issue. The seniors apologised for their indecent behaviour and gave a written undertaking that they would not repeat such acts. The juniors accepted their request and agreed to withdraw their complaint," said Prof. B. Laxmaiah, Dean of Students Affairs.

Prof. Laxmaiah and Arts College Principal Mr Keshava Narayana 'mediated' with the students to resolve the issue. They later went to the OU police station along with the students and requested the police not to lodge cases since the students had reached an understanding.

When contacted, OU vice-chancellor Prof. Satyanarayana dismissed the ragging incident and said that it was only a petty quarrel between students.

"We had summoned the seniors and juniors to give an explanation. They told us that there were some differences among them and these had been resolved. The juniors agreed to withdraw the complaints after the seniors apologised. We have taken all measures to curb ragging on the campus and as such we will not tolerate any kind of ragging," he said.

In February 2009, the Supreme Court had issued directions to all state governments to take stringent anti-ragging measures, including filing criminal cases against erring students.

It had also ordered for a cut in financial aid to educational institutions found protecting students involved in ragging.