Ragging: Kerala nursing student locked in room and beaten by four seniors in Coimbatore

If you thought that the pandemic and the lockdowns would have brought down the chances that ragging, the violent kind at that, would occur when colleges reopen, you'd be mistaken. 

Barely a month after returning to college, a 20-year-old student from Kerala was locked up in a room, slapped in a shocking incident of ragging at a private nursing college. All four involved in ragging the student were second-years of a private nursing college in Coimbatore, who were arrested and subsequently let out on bail, Coimbatore police said on October 1.

None of them stayed in campus and had rented a room outside. “All of them stay outside the college in shared rental rooms and not in hostels. They dragged the complainant (Kerala student) and hit him with their hands. There are no injuries. They have also ragged him for some time,” said S Murugavel, Assistant Commissioner, Coimbatore Police told the Hindustan Times.

The alleged ragging happened on September 20. Disturbed and shocked by the incident, the student, who is a fresher, went back to his family living in Kerala. On September 29, as per his family’s wishes, the student returned to Coimbatore and filed a complaint at the Singanallur police station. All four the second year in the private nursing college, were arrested on the same day as the complaint was registered.

“The complaint was filed against these four students and all of them were arrested and have now been released on bail,” confirmed another senior police official in Coimbatore. “Some media reports have suggested that 13 people have been booked. That’s not the case. We are not on the lookout anymore,” the senior official told the daily.

The accused have been booked under Sections 3 and Section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Ragging Act, 1997. They have also been booked under Sections 143 (unlawful assembly) and 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).