THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Seven senior students belonging to the Student’s Federation of India (SFI) at the Government College Kariavattom here have been suspended after a complaint of ragging was reported.
Bins Jose, a first-year graduate student on the campus, complained of being beaten up and asked to drink water which a senior student had spit into when he asked for a glass of water when the torture was going on.
Jose told the media that he was roughed up and asked to kneel as part of the ragging. “Then I was taken to a room and the harassment continued. I was told to give a complaint that I was beaten up by a classmate. But I refused this. I was repeatedly told that if I complained about this, I would be dealt with seriously, ” said Jose.
Later Jose approached the local police and his complaint was registered. When the news of this was taken up by the media, the college authorities also decided to act and suspended the seven accused students.
Meanwhile, this fresh case has come at a time when five students, all having allegiance to the SFI at the state-run Nursing College in Kottayam, were arrested last week for the brutal torture of a junior student and the video of it that came out revealed the shocking incident.
Moreover, the suspension of the seven SFI students here comes on the first death anniversary of J.S. Sidharthan, a junior student who was found hanging in the hostel washroom at the College of Veterinary and Animal Sciences in Wayanad.
In that case, 18 SFI students were arrested and jailed and presently are out on bail.
The state unit of the BJP led by its president K.Surendran after the Kottayam ragging incident has now announced that they will set up an anti-ragging cell in all the 14 districts of the state and any student subjected to ragging can complain. The first unit has now started functioning in Kottayam.
With the SFI activists being the accused in these three cases, the Congress-led UDF are also up in arms. The party has blamed the CPI(M) and the Pinarayi Vijayan government for providing support to the SFI students.
With the fresh incident surfacing on Tuesday, State Higher Education Minister Dr R. Bindhu said that a meeting of all the college principals has been called to discuss the ragging issue.