JOIN US In two separate incidents, four students were arrested and 22 others suspended on Saturday, following complaints of ragging against them in two colleges of the Hooghly district.
Four students of the century-old Government College of Engineering & Textile Technology, Serampore, were arrested, while 22 students of Netaji Mahavidyalaya, Arambagh, were suspended.
A second year Information Technology department student Arijit Sikdar, lodged a complaint with the UGC’s anti-ragging cell, saying that four senior students forced him to buy liquor threatening that otherwise he would be pushed from the first-floor balcony of their hostel, sources said.
Principal Sumanta Bhattacharya said the UGC cell informed the college about the complaint and the four students were issued a show-cause notice. After the complaints were proved in a probe of the college anti-ragging committee, an FIR was lodged against them according to law and the four were arrested, he said.
Superintendent of Police Sunil Chowdhury said Gobinda Seal, Anurag Mohanty, Apurba Talukdar and Pintu Rajak were arrested after an FIR was lodged by college authorities.
In the second incident, Sanjib Adhikary, a first year student of the geography department at the Netaji Mahavidyalaya of Arambagh, complained that he was severely tortured by senior students in the hostel on the night of September 9.
According to the complaint, he was made to sit on a chair with two light bulbs held before his eyes. When he wanted to drink water, he was given urine. After his four-hour ordeal ended at 2 am, he was instructed to get up early and wake up all students of the hostel.
However, he left the hostel and went home at Kotulpur in Bankura district from where he returned with his father and complained to the principal.
Adhikary managed to record a portion of the conversations of that took place that night and the principal said that he has listened to the recording. He said a governing body meeting would decide on the fate of the students.
Missionary schools to close on Sept 19
Educational institutes run by the Church of North India and other Christian missionaries across Bengal have decided to protest against the recent vandalism at Christ Church Girls’ High School over the death of a student, with a one-day token closure on September 19, reports DHNS from Kolkata. The class V girl allegedly died after being ragged by her seniors.