Ragging Death

Ragging Stink in Medico Death
















Shimla/Chandigarh, March 10:
The principal of a Himachal Pradesh medical college has been removed and a state probe ordered after a 19-year-old student died of head injuries allegedly sustained during ragging.

“We have ordered a judicial probe and nobody will be spared,” chief minister Prem Kumar Dhumal said today, hours after the four seniors suspected to be behind the death were remanded in police custody by a local court.

The victim, Aman Satya Kachru, had filed a complaint against the ragging on Saturday, a day before he died.

But the authorities at Dr Rajendra Prasad Medical College in Tanda, 30km from Dharamsala, allegedly did nothing.

Health minister Rajeev Bindal said the hostel warden and manager had also been suspended amid allegations that the college authorities were trying to shield the accused.

There have been allegations that principal Suresh Sankhyan is close to the father of one of the four seniors who allegedly tortured Aman and is trying to protect them.

Ajay Verma, Naveen Verma, Mukul Sharma and Abhinav Verma face murder charges. “A case has been registered under Section 302 of the IPC (murder) against them,” Kangra SP Atul Fulzehele said.

Aman had said in his complaint that four seniors, apparently drunk, had entered his room around 2am on Saturday and asked 13 first-year students like him to assemble.

“We were asked to slap and hit each other. Then Ajay Verma slapped me seven times,” he said in the complaint. The ragging, which involved more thrashings, continued till 4am and nobody, not even the guard, came to their rescue, the complaint said.

The police said Aman went to the college hospital with complaints of pain in the head and ear early on Saturday. His condition deteriorated on Sunday and he died that night. The post-mortem confirmed head injuries.

Police said the principal had informed them only after Aman died, fuelling suspicion that Sankhyan had tried to hide the incident.

Amar had written to his parents about the ragging, which he said had been going on for the past four months. His parents had asked him to leave but the boy chose to stay on, hoping matters would improve with time.

His father Ravindra Kachru, who returned to their home in Gurgaon today from Tanzania where he is a professor, said he had never thought ragging could lead to his son’s death. “I would have dealt with the gang myself.”

The word “gang” may not have been out of place. In September last year, the four seniors had allegedly tortured 23 students who filed a police complaint saying they were forced to flee the hostel during one such night of beatings.

That case is pending in a Kangra court. But the college authorities had then tried to downplay the incidents by handing the culprits a two-day token suspension.

Abhinav, the son of principal Sankhyan’s friend who is an assistant professor at Shimla’s Indira Gandhi Medical College, is said to be the group leader.

Corruption takes many forms.
A person who uses his position and influence to bulldoze probes into their ward's misdeeds is also guilty of corruption.
A young life has bee snuffed our because the college authorities did not take appropriate action against culprits when first comaplaint poured in against them.
The parents of the four boys Ajay Verma, Mukul Verma, Mukul Sharma and Abhinav Verma should be severely punished together with their boys.
They should be made to pay a penalty to the parents of Aman Satya Kachru which should be the equivalent of what young Aman would have earned until 58 years of age.
The college principal, Suresh Sankhya, and the hostel warden where ragging took place should be sacked and their certificates should be so marked that they do not get any employment in future in any educational institution.
Unless the the government takes serious and exemplary action against those involved in or abetting ragging, the disease will never be cured and every year we will lose many brilliant young students.

Radheshyam