A case has been booked against three persons including two students of a private engineering college in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, for allegedly ragging and assaulting an 18-year-old student who is also pursuing the second-year BE Mechatronics Engineering in the same college.
As per a report by The New Indian Express, the Sulur police arrested the three suspects — final year senior students Muthukumar (21) a native of Kumbakonam, Gogul (21), a native of Karur and Dhanapal (25), a staff at a tea shop at Sulur, based on the complaint filed by the victim.
The victim S Akhilesh, an 18-year-old native of Aathikaaripatty in Salem district, has been pursuing a second-year BE in Mechatronics Engineering in a private engineering college at Sulur in Coimbatore district and he was staying at the college hostel.
On Wednesday, November 22, evening around 4.30 pm, third-year students Kural Iniyan, and Aravind and final-year students Muthukumar, and Gokul warned second-year students not to wear thread in hand (Kappu Kayiru), it must be tucked in while wearing full sleeve shirt, not to sit cross-legged and to respect seniors. While they were warning the junior students, Akhilesh reportedly moved away from the hostel without considering their words, which allegedly triggered anger toward the junior students.
On November 23, Thursday evening, after college hours, a group of senior students took the 12 junior students to a rental room behind the Sulur new bus stand. The room belonged to the final year student Venkatesh. There, they allegedly warned the juniors about not obeying their orders. After leaving all the senior students, Muthukumar and Gokul took Akilesh on a bike to another location, belonging to Dhanapal, where the three had allegedly assaulted Akilesh and abused him using filthy words, according to the police.
The police sources informed TNIE, “The three gave a life threat to the junior student and damaged his mobile phone and wristwatch. Following the incident Akhilesh lodged a complaint against the three with Sulur police on Thursday night and the case was booked under sections 294 (b) (uttering obscene words), 323 (Punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (i) (Criminal Intimidation) of IPC and section 4 of the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Ragging Act. Based on the investigation, police arrested the suspects on Friday and remanded them to the prison."
Earlier on November 8, the Peelamedu police in Coimbatore city booked eight students and arrested seven of them for allegedly ragging and harassing a second-year student in an engineering college.
