Indore: A first year student of Prestige Institute of Management and Research (PIMR), one of the leading colleges of the city, was allegedly ragged by two of his classmates but the institute instead of taking a stern action into the matter left it up to the victim to resolve the issue on his own.
With no solution in sight, the victim finally lodged a complaint with anti-ragging helpline of University Grants Commission (UGC) that immediately swung into action and alerted Indore police about the ragging incident.
The UGC also called up the registrar of DAVV, to which PIMR is affiliated, to inform him about the ragging incident but being Sunday his office was closed and nobody took the phone call. The UGC instructed the college authorities to probe into matter and submit a report at the earliest.
Bachelor of Arts (Mass Communication) first year student of PIMR (UG Campus) was allegedly ragged by two of his classmates including Geteesh Sharma and Hatim Badhshah. “They used to torture, harass, verbally abuse and pass lewd comments on me more often,” the complainant said.
He stated that they had removed him from BAMC College (Whatsapp) groups and personally targeting him. “When I sought to know reason for targeting me, they don’t answer and continue harassing,” he said. As per the complainant, Geetesh even threatened him once. “I have recorded the conversation when he was issuing threat to me,” he said stating that it was a vital proof that he was being bullied at the college.
The complainant also stated that Hatim has a pull with local criminals, who he says, will beat him up and possibly kill him if he stood against them. “I told Hatim that I will inform my parents and lodge an FIR of mental harassment with police but he cared little about my warning,” the victim stated.
‘Deal with problem yourself’
Fed up with regular harassment, the complainant approached senior faculty Zuber Khan and informed about ragging by Geetesh and Hatim seeking his intervention. “I don’t want to lodge an official complaint so approached the teacher but he told me that it’s my problem so I myself should deal with it,” the complainant stated.
Probe begins today
PIMR journalism department head Dr Raju C John said that that they had received the ragging compliant from UGC and the same would be put before anti-ragging committee. “The committee will start its inquiry from Monday. After recording statements of the complainant and the accused, we will submit our report with findings to the UGC and the DAVV,” he said.
John, however, stated that the UGC has not disclosed the name of the complainant citing its policy. “The higher education regulator suggested us identifying the victim by ourselves. We will do that by talking to all students individually,” he added. Meanwhile, DAVV dean student welfare LK Tripathi said that they were unaware of the ragging compliant from PMIR. “We will collect information from the college about the allegation on Monday,” Tripathi added.
6th complaint from Indore since Jan
This was the six complaint of ragging from the city since January. First complaint was lodged from PMB Gujarati College (Indore), second from Sushila Devi Bansal College of Technology, third from Institute of Engineering & Technology, fourth from College of Agriculture and fifth also from College of Agriculture. Now, the complaint has been filed from PIMR. Last year, merely four ragging cases has been reported report from the city. This year, in just less than four months, six ragging cases have already been report with UGC.