To crack a ragging case from July, a female constable from Indore went undercover as a student at Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Indore, Madhya Pradesh. After spending about a month as a student in the college, the undercover constable, Shalini Chouhan cracked the case and arrested over 11 students for ragging.
Sanyogita Ganj police station in-charge, Tehzeeb Qazi told ANI, "The victims were neither willing to reveal their names nor those of the accused students. They had lodged a complaint on the Delhi UGC helpline after which the dean of MGM college lodged a complaint and a case was registered. While an investigation was launched into the matter, the students (victims) weren't willing to come forward and give their statements.”
Tehzeeb Qazi added, “We asked the anti-ragging committee (of the college) to share the phone numbers of the complainants but they could not. I then formed a team of four police personnel, including Shalini, to probe the matter. They went undercover, posing as a nurse, student and employees of the college. They interacted with the students without disclosing their identities and eventually managed to identify the accused. We recorded the statements of some of the students and our undercover personnel kept gathering more information by listening in on chats and conversations between the senior and junior students at the college. Before long, all the accused students were identified. We have arrested 11 accused students, so far, in the case and if more names come up in the course of our investigation, they will face action as well,” as reported by ANI.
The women constable who went undercover told that the victims were not coming forward with statements and she was sent by the station to go undercover. During her time when she was undercover, she managed to befriend a few students. “For a month, I spent about five to six hours in the college daily, talking to the students. With time, I befriended them and started identifying the accused. The juniors weren't willing to give away the names of their seniors involved in the ragging incident, out of fear. I took the names of two or three accused students from my side, after which the juniors took me into confidence and helped identify the accused. I sent word to my seniors after identifying the accused,” she said. A few other police personnel were also deployed around the college to keep watch. “ It was the first undercover operation for me in eight years on the job. It was very challenging. Initially, I was a bit hesitant to pose as an MBBS student but my station in-charge, Tehzeeb Qazi, motivated me to go undercover and unmask the accused," she added.
The Dean of Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Medical College, Dr Sanjay Dixit, told ANI, "We had received a complaint of ragging from the UGC, after which we had lodged an FIR. Our Anti-Ragging Committee has suspended all the 11 students accused in the case from the college as well as the hostel for three months, during which time they will not be able to attend classes,” as reported by ANI.
