Five 2nd year MBBS students booked over Ragging at Telangana Medical College

Suryapet: In an incident of ragging at the Government Medical College in Suryapet, the district police have registered a case against five second-year MBBS students under Sections 448, 323, 504 and 506 of the Anti-Ragging Act Telangana, following which they were taken into custody.

The first year medico was reportedly rescued by the police officials on the night of January 1, who was ragged by a group of senior students in the Boys hostel room.

An FIR has been filed over the incident in Suryapet I Town police station. Four to five second-year students were named in the FIR, said the Suryapet DSP (Deputy Superintendent of Police) Mohan Kumar.

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Based on the written complaint of the medico, the five students were taken into custody on Saturday Night, reports the Telangana Today.

The student was stripped, made to kneel and salute his seniors, was threatened with a haircut and was physically assaulted. The student was only able to get out of the room on the pretext of going to the toilet, following which he called his parents and told them about what he was subjected to, reports TOI.

The state health minister T Harish Rao has stated that the incident came to the government's notice and a committee has been established to investigate the incident.

Minister Rao said, "Director of Medical Education (DME) Ramesh Reddy has been directed to constitute a committee to find out whether ragging happened, and who was responsible. The committee has been asked to submit their report by the afternoon of January 3. If such an incident really happened, the culprits will be punished severely. The government will take strict action to prevent such incidents from recurring."

According to a media report in the News Minute, the first year student stated that the seniors confined him in their room for around two hours and harassed him mentally.

He added that he was made to kneel down the entire time with folded arms. He was asked to salute them, give details of his family members and demanded him to address them as 'sir'. "They said awful abusive things. One of them hit me on the ear and punched me in the stomach. Whatever they did, I was asked to keep my arms folded," the student said as per a voice recording that was broadcast on TV5.

He alleged that when the seniors got to realize that he was attempting to record the incident, they seized the phone and deleted the recordings. He said, "Then, they made me unlock my WhatsApp, looked into my personal messages and passed comments. The windows and door were closed. They were drinking alcohol and the room was filled with cigarette smoke. I couldn't bear the smell."

As the hair of the student kept falling to his face, he alleged that the seniors took a trimmer and threatened to cut it off, "Since I am a little popular for making Instagram reels, they mocked me for it. They all took out their phone cameras and asked me to strip. I begged them to stop."

The News Minute further adds that the student was allowed to use the washroom after multiple requests in two hours, accompanied by a senior. He said, "I managed to escape on the way back, locked myself inside a room, took someone's phone and called my father, who called the police."

The principal of the college said that immediately after the incident came to their notice, the senior doctors visited the hospital and the student was sent to his parents the next morning itself.

The principal said, "The boy said he was made to kneel down and was slapped. From what we noticed, there were no major injuries," noting that there have been differences reported between the students in the past.

She added, "A committee has been constituted to investigate the incident to determine if it was an instance of ragging or happened due to personal differences. If the seniors are found guilty, we will take action against them." She informed that the committee would be submitting its report within one or two days.

As per a media report in the Hans India, the police had initially registered case against five students, with the number likely to increase after future investigation. The victim was able to identify only five people, whereas others needed to be verified, the SP said, as there are around 25 to 30 seniors present in the room during the ragging.

The SP added that there is no anti-ragging committee present in the medical college. He stated that since the medical colleges and hospitals are located at multiple places, the ragging might have taken place due to the lack of supervision at the hospital. He added that they would take all the steps required to prevent ragging in the medical college in the future.

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