Patna: Fifteen medical students have been suspended for hazing their juniors. This follows an uproar on the Indira Gandhi Institute of Medical Sciences (IGIMS) campus earlier this month (July 4), when some students registered an FIR with the Shastri Nagar police. The IGIMS management on Thursday suspended the 15 MBBS students of the 2013, 2014 and 2015 batch for the ‘ragging’ incident. Hazing, a common enough practice in colleges and high schools in the west, is termed ‘ragging’ and is a criminal offence in India.
The anti-ragging committee of the IGIMS on Wednesday night recommended suspension of 15 MBBS students of the three batches against whom the 2016 batch students lodged an FIR at Shastri Nagar police station on July 4.
In a separate complaint to the University Grants Commission’s National Anti-Ragging Helpline and Medical Council of India (MCI), the junior students stated that certain senior MBBS students of 2013, 2014 and 2015 batch ‘physically and mentally harassed’ them on July 3 midnight. They named the students, who they claim had hazed them for two consecutive days on campus.
They beat up the 2016 batch students and one of them suffered a shoulder injury. The seniors forced us to strip naked and nude in the field. They ragged us in the hostel and on the college campus, says the complaint.
The institute on Thursday directed the suspended students to leave the campus immediately, and ordered them to submit an affidavit attested by a first-class magistrate stating they would not indulge in ragging in future, otherwise harsh disciplinary action would be taken against them.
According to sources, the 2016 batch students lodged an FIR at the Shastri Nagar police station and registered a complaint with the University Grants Commission’s National Anti-Ragging Helpline and Medical Council of India online instead of informing the college authorities after ragging was first reported at the new boys’ hostel on July 4 night. The 2016 batch students had provided names of the accused in the FIR and also in the complaint sent to the national anti-ragging cell.
“The UGC National Anti-Ragging Helpline has sent us a summary of the ragging episode and were continuously sending us mails to inquire about our stand,” IGIMS principal Ranjit Guha disclosed to the media.
“We got to know later that students had lodged an FIR in this connection. After the FIR, we formed an internal committee which interrogated the students and those present at the hostel where the incident occurred. Written statements were also taken. Information that was revealed in the investigation was communicated to the national anti-ragging committee. The anti-ragging committee, which was later handed over the matter, again interrogated the students and took their written statements and other witnesses. The anti-ragging committee comprises a local administrative official, an MBBS boy student, MBBS girl student, faculty member, a member of press among other varied members, recommended the decision to suspend all the 15 students with immediate effect till further orders and it also recommended that the accused students should submit the affidavit. We implemented the anti-raging committee’s order,” he said