Tripura Medical College files police complaint against 18 students, imposes Rs 10 lakh fine for ragging

NEW DELHI: Tripura Medical College lodged a police complaint against 18 senior Bachelor of Medicine, and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS) students for ragging junior students. According to the Society Against Violence in Education (SAVE), an anti-ragging NGO, the seniors forced the juniors to shave their heads and forced female students to propose to them and sing songs.

The college conducted an internal inquiry and found the accused guilty of repeatedly abusing, threatening, and humiliating the newly admitted 2024 MBBS students, particularly the Scheduled Tribe (ST) students. As per the institute, the senior students forced their juniors to engage in degrading activities through WhatsApp messages.

“Many girls have had to forcefully propose to male seniors and sing for them. Some boys had to shave their head completely and send pictures bald,” one of the WhatsApp screenshots shared by the junior students read.

Imposed penalties on accused

In response to the offences, the college imposed a collective fine of Rs 10 lakh on the accused students, suspended them from hostels for a year, and mandated mobile phone monitoring for six months.

After receiving complaints from the victims, the NGO lodged complaints with the college and the UGC Anti-Ragging helpline. The victims were even shown sample pictures of the intended head-shaving style, highlighting the extent of the planned humiliation.

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“It is worth mentioning that the mass head shaving has become a kind of ritual in ragging in medical colleges across India, with reports and pictures of hordes of heads shaven students appearing in the media every year,” the official press release read.

Human rights violations highlighted

The Anti-Ragging Activist, Rupesh Kumat Jha, who led the operation from the NGO’s side, stated, “This should serve as an example for the entire country. Mass human rights violations cannot be allowed in our educational institutions to go unpunished.”

Another activist, Supreme Court Advocate Meera Kaura Patel, opined, “This is one of the biggest cases in which any college has given punishment to the culprits. In many such earlier cases, the college administrations in the past have tried to cover up the acts of ragging prevalent.”